


The One Crutch Job

by JBMcDragon



Category: Leverage
Genre: Eliot can take it he's a badass, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Team Feels, Team as Family, Team!fic, Whump!fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-26
Updated: 2012-10-02
Packaged: 2017-12-10 19:43:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 30,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/789450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JBMcDragon/pseuds/JBMcDragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It had been the simplest of plans, the easiest of heists, and a fantastic coincidence that all three of them were in Paris at the same time. It was practically set up for them.</p><p>Then everything went wrong. With Eliot captured and the rest of the team on the way, a rescue is the first priority. Getting him to a hospital is second. Taking down the bad guy comes a distant third. For once, none of them mind coming in third.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Team!fic with emphasis on Eliot, Hardison, and Parker. This is not an OT3.
> 
> Spoilers and notes: Through Season 4. Takes place during the break between S4 and S5, and though it doesn't make S5 entirely AU, some details would be altered very slightly. With a nod to darksideofstorm, who suggested "Eliot gets hurt and needs rescuing" as a fandom cliche that ought to be re-done. Hope you like it, DK! Also, a big thank-you to my beta, daroos, who pointed out awkward sentences and fuzzy explanations, as well as lending her foodie-ness to my utter and complete lack of food and cooking knowledge. You rock, Roos!
> 
> Disclaimer: I spent as much time researching shampoo as I did researching drugs, so take everything within with a grain of salt. Or maybe a shaker. A shaker is good, too. I also do not own, nor am I making any money off of, these characters.
> 
> Warnings: Story contains torture and violence as well as the aftermath of such. This is a much more realistic look at human abilities for pain management than the show sometimes gives. ("Got shot twice, Eliot? Walk it off, man!" There is none of that, kthnx.)

Eliot smiled at the waitress from behind his sunglasses, one arm stretched along the railing of the little cafe. The waitress smiled in return, bending slightly more than she needed to as she set his cappuccino down in front of him, and walked off with a distinct swish in her step. Watching her go, he pondered how to get her back over sooner rather than later.

Sunshine warmed his bare arm. It soaked into the dark cotton of his t-shirt, into the iron railing he leaned on -- cool, now, under his skin -- and put him in a lazy frame of mind. No jobs to do, no people to protect... it was a perfect day.

The rest of the team was scattered across the globe on a much-needed break. It had been weeks since he'd heard from any of them. Which was probably why he nearly stabbed Parker with a steak knife when she dropped into the seat across the table.

"Hi!"

"Parker!" He arrested the forward sweep of his arm, driving the knife down into the wire mesh table. It struck with a twang, the blade lodged securely in one of the holes. "Don't _do_ that!"

"Do what?" She looked as if she really had no idea what she'd done. Her hair was pulled back in its customary ponytail, a long fall of golden strands. It was still swaying from her drop. The rest of her looked like she always did; fitted t-shirt that left room for movement, black cargo pants with bulging pockets (he didn't want to know), and under the table he could see bright yellow laces. He was almost glad he couldn't make out the rest. She looked refreshed, happy, and not at all surprised to find him in France, of all places.

  
He ignored her question in favor of a better one. "What are you doing here?"

"Hardison wanted to see the Eiffel Tower." 'With Parker' went unsaid. He'd thought they were headed down that road. "What are you doing here?" She leaned forward, all joints and somehow graceful in spite of it, but didn't lower her voice. "A job? It's a job, isn't it. You're--"

Eliot shook his head in exasperation and sipped his drink, leaning back and attempting to reclaim some of the warm laziness of moments before. He smiled again at the waitress as she walked past.

"You're flirting!" Parker gasped, as if it were even _better_ than a job. Alarmed at what she might do, Eliot glanced at her. "Are you going to have sex?" Parker asked, and looked around the cafe quickly. "With her? With _him_?"

"What?" Eliot's gaze followed Parker's, landing on the young, male host. "No!" He scowled at her furiously.

"Oh." She settled in her chair, now tracking the waitress. "Her, then? She's hot. You should have sex with her."

Suddenly, the sunshine seemed a little too warm, and the day a little too eventful. The extreme coincidence that they were both in Paris, in France, at this same cafe seemed to have utterly bypassed Parker, and with it had gone all the _normal_ conversation one would have expected from such a coincidence. His head hurt. "I'm not discussing this with you, Parker."

"Why not?" He had her undivided attention. That was almost worse. "Hardison says that you're the only one on the team now who isn't hooked up -- we're together now, by the way," she said it with all the delight as if she'd invented the concept herself, "-- and if you aren't careful you'll get pink balls and they might even fall off. I don't want your balls to fall off, Eliot." The thing was, he could see she was completely earnest.

He was going to kill Hardison. "Blue balls, Parker, and--"

Her eyes widened in alarm. "It's already happened?"

"No!" Eliot sat forward, lowering his voice as people glanced their way. "My sex life is just fine. Nothing's going to--" he gestured to his crotch, realized that was even less subtle, and hissed, "fall off!"

The waitress was looking at him and Parker warily now. Christ, if Parker was going to "help" his sex life, things might just start falling off before he got laid again. Eliot took a breath, regaining his calm, and sat back in his chair. "What are you doing here?"

Parker shrugged. "I saw you. I was bored. You know, if you're not on a job, Hardison and I thought of this great three-man one that's local, right here in France." She looked hopeful. "It'd be a fantastic heist."

It would be fantastic, too, if she and Hardison had come up with it. Probably dangerous and with five steps too many, but fantastic.

This was supposed to be his vacation, damn it. They'd be doing plenty of jobs once the team was together again.

Parker continued into his silence. "It wasn't possible with just Hardison and me, but since you're here..." She grinned. "You know you want to."

It was like kicking a puppy, telling Parker no. Eliot stalled. "Where _is_ Hardison? If you're on vacation together--"

Parker shrugged. Her eyes were remarkably blue in this light, her skin pale. He knew what a lie the angelic appearance was. Any minute she'd sprout horns. "He's back at the hotel, sleeping. He needs a lot more rest than I do, and we were up all night--"

"Planning the heist," Eliot said, cutting her off quickly.

Startled, Parker glanced at him. "No, we were--"

"Planning the heist, Parker!" Eliot growled it, more intent now. He did _not_ want her to finish that sentence the way he knew she was going to.

"But we--"

"Planning the heist!" God, she was opening her mouth to talk. Eliot leaned forward, jabbing his finger against the table for emphasis. "Parker, don't you say what I think you're going to say, you were _planning the heist_." He stared at her, hard, willing her to understand.

"Ohhhhh," she said at last, with the smile she got whenever she _finally_ caught on. "That's right. Okay. We were--" and then, damn it, she actually used finger quotes, "'planning the heist.'" She winked at him.

Now he was _never_ going to be able to scrub the image of her and Hardison out of his brain. He dragged his hands through his hair, defeated. He was happy they were happy, but he still didn't want to think of them having sex.

"You should come back to the hotel with me!" Parker said happily. "We could totally plan the heist!"

Eliot's head snapped up, horror in his gut. She wasn't actually suggesting-- This time, Eliot caught himself using finger quotes. "Look, uh, that's flattering and all Parker, but I'm not interested in "planning the heist"--"

She looked confused, which was his first clue that he'd gotten it wrong. Then she laughed and shook her head, as if she were discussing puppies and candy canes instead of sex or robbery. "No, silly. Not "plan the heist," but plan the heist! It's a three-man job, and c'mon, I've already found you. We might as well do something fun to commemorate our trip to France, right?"

Eliot shook his head firmly. "We're on vacation." When she opened her mouth to argue, he said more intently, "We're laying low, Parker. There's a reason you lay low after big jobs."

That made her close her mouth and sit back. She did, in fact, look like a kicked puppy. "But it would be a really good heist."

"No." Eliot picked his cappuccino up and sipped, determined to enjoy the day.

**

Eliot wasn't nearly as tough as he thought he was. He was like a ninja Peeps, Parker decided, if they'd made ninja Peeps. Crunchy coconut goodness armed with sharp pointy things on the outside, and on the inside a squishy marshmallow center that exploded if you microwaved it.

She really loved Peeps.

She'd lured him in with the heist. It was a good heist, and Parker could see it taking hold in Eliot's brain as he sat at the kitchen table in the suite, looking over blueprints with Hardison. Parker planted her hands on the table, too excited to sit. She loved the smell of blueprints and coffee in the morning.

"And," Hardison continued, "he's been funneling money toward the White Supremacist group local here, so once we're done, he won't be able to keep that going." Hardison grinned, shared a look with Parker, and added, "We thought we'd give the money to the charities for the underprivileged."

"That's... actually pretty straightforward," Eliot said slowly, nodding.

"My girl here came up with half of it." Hardison grinned at her, leaning back in his chair. She grinned at him, too, resisting the urge to bounce on her toes. Instead, she leaned into Eliot's space -- he leaned back and looked at her with frowny eyebrows -- and sniffed. He always smelled like cookies and blade oil under whatever it was he wore. Then she leaned into Hardison and sniffed him, too. He smelled like -- well, kind of like her, and sated sleepiness. He didn't lean away. His smile lost the pride, softened somehow. Dark eyes crinkled at the corners and his teeth were ultra-white against his skin.

Parker whipped back around to stare at Eliot. He was watching them, a smile lurking on his mouth. His arms were folded across the table, shirt tight over his biceps. As soon as their eyes met, he dropped his gaze to stare at the schematics. Parker's gaze drifted back to his arms, and she said thoughtfully, "We need a part where Eliot can beat people up."

"What?" Eliot asked. "Why?"

Parker shrugged, checking the blueprints. Maybe if they went in through that door, and tripped that alarm, the guards would come by... "I like watching your muscles. And your scary face. I like watching that, too."

Eliot made a noise, one of those loud, sharp types of noises that Parker thought she should be able to figure out, but somehow never could. Hardison was making noises too; "Hey, now!" She looked between them, confused.

Eliot got up from his chair and stalked away. "Eeagh," he said, shrugging his shoulders as if his skin didn't fit. "I feel so... objectified." He shot her a look over his shoulder, eyebrows low.

"What?" Parker demanded. "I'm not objectifying you. I just like the way your muscles look." Just the thought of it made her feel all good. She grinned and gave into the urge to bounce on her toes. "It makes me tingle."

Eliot stalked toward the bathroom, yelling something like, "Eugh, Parker!" while Hardison sat up in his chair, staring hard at her. "There something you want to tell me, Mama?" he asked sharply. "I got muscles, too, y'know!" He was flexing them just for her.

Parker grinned and reached over to stroke Hardison's muscles. "I know. I just like to _look_ at his muscles when he beats people up. I don't want to touch them."

Hardison seemed somewhat mollified. More so, as Parker kept petting. There was this nice swell along his bicep, and that spot where it went in to connect to his deltoid--

"Do I need to come back later?" Eliot asked, coming out of the bathroom.

Sometimes, Eliot made no sense. "Why would you do that?"

But Hardison was chuckling, catching her hand and kissing her fingertips (which he did whenever he wanted to kiss _her_ but was smart enough to realize she didn't want to be kissed right then) before letting go. "We're good, Eliot."

Eliot came closer again. "What do we need to do this job?" he asked, grabbing his chair and flipping it around. He folded his arms along the back, eyes fastening on the blueprints. Parker considered the way his bicep slid into his deltoid, t-shirt sleeve tight across it. Not as good as Hardison's, she decided, and wondered how she could have gone so long without really noticing--

"Stop looking at my muscles, Parker. You're freaking me out. And Hardison's sitting right there."

"I am secure in my masculinity. Even if she does look at other muscles, sometimes," Hardison proclaimed in his proclaimy voice. He used it when he was on his computer, too.

Parker glanced at Eliot's face. He was still looking at the blueprints. She grinned.

**

The security feeds were remarkably easy to hack into. Not just because they needed to be updated -- they did -- but because they were oddly familiar.

Hardison pondered over it while Parker and Eliot broke into the main house -- it sat on acres of land with a barn in the back, and horses gave Hardison _hives_. He wasn't going anywhere _near_ that outfit.

Instead, he sat at a cafe three miles away, monitoring everything via wifi (the first problem with the mark's security; Hardison loved the types of control freaks who wanted to check on their homes remotely), ready to hop in his rental and drive to the rendezvous point as soon as the others got the painting and the download.

Stealing the Monet was Parker's deal, research good enough to learn it was Nazi loot made Hardison and Eliot feel good about it, and downloading everything off the mark's computer would give them access to account information so they could wipe him clean. It was good work.

"All right, ya'll, you've got security leaving the room in five, four, three, two, and it's all yours."

Parker's voice responded over the earbuds. _"I love this part."_

Then Eliot, _"I can't believe you talked me into this."_

Hardison grinned. As far as he was concerned, if it was a bad idea Parker could talk anyone into it. "You've got ten minutes," he reminded them -- the reason it was a two-man heist on the inside, with a third on the outside. He would spend that time re-routing video feeds and motion sensors while Parker went for the art and Eliot went for the computer, stored on opposite sides of the estate.

Except... there was still something funny about this line of code. Something he knew all too well. Like that time he'd left behind the Sword of Slaying in favor of the Mace of Aldorath because he'd forgotten you could only stop a dragon by beheading it.

 _"Annnd,"_ Parker said, _"I'm in the gallery. Ooh! Shiny."_

**

It was like an itch in his teeth. As soon as he gained entrance into the house, he knew something was wrong. "Stop playing with the artwork and get what we came for," Eliot muttered, knowing the earbuds would pick it up.

_"You guys never let me have any fun. Maybe I could just take this itty bitty Faberge egg...? I bet he'd never notice it was gone..."_

She was going to end up with pockets of loot, Eliot just knew it. He tried to ignore it, slinking down halls as Hardison called out the all-clear for each one. There was security, sure, but when your man could tap into the feeds and see where each guard was, then open the electronically bolted doors and let you inside without tripping the alarm, the security didn't do much good.

Eliot was becoming more and more sure that the only way to slow down a thief was with a length of wood in the windowsill. There were lengths of wood in every windowsill he owned. He tried to forget the time he'd come upon Parker drawing the layout of his house, with the airways and ducts marked in yellow.

Hardison got him into the office. He moved silently to the computer, plugging the USB drive in to one port and the code-breaker to another port before bringing the computer out of sleep. Then it was a matter of waiting while the electronics did their thing. Five minutes to download, then two minutes out, and thirty seconds to spare before the security system noticed Hardison's overrides.

Parker was still cooing over the shiny things in the other end of the house, sounding like no one should over inanimate objects. Hardison was trying to keep her on task. Eliot ignored both of them, glancing out the window to be sure it was clear before he crossed it to examine the room.

On a bookshelf in the corner, he found what had been bothering him. It was a picture of their mark, recognizable from Hardison's briefing, with what Eliot guessed was his daughter.

Eliot recognized his daughter because they'd met, however quickly, when he'd tried (and failed) to kill her husband. Her husband the Colombian arms dealer.

"Damn it, Hardison!" Eliot snarled, snatching the photograph up off the shelf. "Do you know--"

 _"Hang on, hang on! Everyone just shut up a minute!"_ Hardison's voice was strident suddenly, alarmed. Eliot snapped his jaw closed and listened, as if the harder he listened the quicker information would come. He put the picture back, edging toward the computer with great care now.

_"I knew this looked familiar. I knew it! Damn! Guys, this has Chaos's fingerprints all over it. The security is a sham. It's a trap, and any minute now--"_

Something pulsed through the room, making Eliot's ears feel like they needed to pop. The computer shut off with a wheeze. Hardison and Parker's voices were gone.

"Hardison?" Eliot tapped the computer keys to boot it back up, but there was no response -- either from the computer or from his earbud. "Hardison!"

Cursing, Eliot yanked the flash drive out of the USB, hoping they'd downloaded enough, then pocketed the code-breaker as well, tucking both into pockets. He didn't run out of the room. It would have been too loud, drawn too much attention.

The first guard he hit without blinking twice, laying the man out and dismantling the gun before he continued on. The second and third came together; one squeezed off a shot, and there went his stealth. If the electronics all going dead -- even the lights were out, but there were enough windows that moonlight poured in -- hadn't alerted everyone, they were alerted now.

Fourth, fifth, and sixth all came up at once. Eliot bounced Four off the wall so he rammed into Six, taking Five out while the other two untangled themselves. It was over in three breaths.

Seven more breaths, another still-breathing body, and he was halfway through the house. He'd come in here; twenty-five more breaths to Parker, make sure _she_ got out. Anyone aligned with an arms dealer wasn't going to play nice with a thief. Parker might be crazy enough to make some people pause, but she seemed fragile enough to make other people want blood. He'd be damned if that was happening on his watch.

Bodies seven through ten were unavoidable (though he did avoid three more), as was eleven -- leveling a glock through a doorway as Eliot rounded the corner. Doubtless it was aimed at Parker.

Once eleven was down, Eliot rounded that doorway himself, prepared for the worst.

The room was some sort of artsy-fartsy show room. Statues in glass boxes, paintings on the walls, with benches and comfortable chairs for -- what? Sitting and looking? Of all the useless...

Three more bodies were within, two of them at Parker's feet, the third some distance away. She was grinning wildly, holding her Taser. "I love it when they twitch," she said, eyes glittering.

"There's something _wrong_ with you," Eliot muttered, sweeping the room for anyone else. Just Parker's gear, dangling through the skylight. "That your way out?"

Parker nodded.

"Good. Get hitched up and go. I'll keep the hallway clear." Out the window, he could see shapes darting along the hedges. Not a good sign. From the way they moved and the number of shadows he estimated at least fifteen more incoming, and not these rent-a-cops they had inside. The grouping pattering was very distinctive: those guys were former military.

Parker stepped into the harness, sliding it over narrow shoulders and clamping it to -- shit, he didn't know. It all looked like ropes and pulleys to him. "What about you?"

"I'll meet you at the third possible rendezvous point," Eliot said, mentally reviewing plans and back-up plans in his head. If any of them were possible, that one was.

That one wasn't really possible. But by the time Hardison and Parker realized he wasn't coming and did some dumb ass thing like come back here for him, this area would be so locked down they wouldn't try coming in and getting their dumb asses killed. Anything else was suicide for them.

"My line can take us both," Parker said, her feet hanging off the floor now. "Climb on."

He glanced at her. Elsewhere in the house, something banged. "Here," Eliot said, tucking the USB drive and the code-breaker into one of her pouches. "There should be enough information on it. Go."

"Eliot--"

"Damn it, Parker!" He glared at her, willing her up and out of harm's way. "Go! Send your stupid harness thingy back down, and I'll get out. One of us needs to go now. _Go_."

Her lips parted. Her brows drew in. For a moment, he thought she was going to argue with him. Then her mouth firmed and she reached up, clipping something or unclipping something, and the harness pulled her back up through the skylight.

Eliot took a deep breath. If they caught him, then they wouldn't be looking so hard for her. She'd have a shot at escaping.

The harness dropped back down in a pile of nylon straps and hard metal buckles. "Go!" Eliot shouted up at her. "Rendezvous point three!"

She stuck her hand over, gave him a thumbs' up, and was gone. Eliot grabbed one of the guard's guns and smashed the nearest glass box. If it looked like a robbery, then they wouldn't be so likely to go after Parker. If they caught him, they wouldn't be so likely to go after Parker. If he gave her enough time, they wouldn't be so likely to catch Parker.

Eight men filled the doorway, guns aimed and ready, everyone wearing armor. Eliot counted barrels and tossed the guard's gun aside, cracking his neck. "All right, boys. Let's dance."

**

Parker, thank God, was right there where they were supposed to rendezvous. Eliot was not.

"Where--" Hardison began, but got no farther as Parker leaped into the car, the very picture of windblown, and began stripping. It was never good when she started stripping off-plan.

"Rendezvous three," she panted, glancing back toward the estate. And then, when Hardison didn't take off fast enough, yelled, "Go!"

Hardison went.

**************

I don't get paid, but I do love feedback... :D


	2. Chapter 2

Eliot came to consciousness -- again -- fuzzily. He tried to stay still, stay quiet, keep his breathing slow and even. Every other time he'd come to, they'd snugged a plastic bag over his head and suffocated him until he'd lost consciousness. It was... a less than pleasant way to go under.  
  
Knocking someone out by suffocation was a risky endeavor. Doing so repeatedly to keep them down meant risking brain damage. Without drugs handy and with a captive you wanted kept quiet and unconscious, it was slightly safer than bashing them in the head repeatedly and risking concussion. Eliot had never done it, himself.  
  
Being on the receiving end was far worse than however stressful the giving end was. Adrenaline surged through him as he woke, and he kept his responses tamped down. Everything in him was screaming to fight, now, before they did it again.  
  
This time air came easily, though. Crisp, clean air with a slightly plastic taste that meant--  
  
A mask was strapped to his face, elastic bands cutting into each cheek. Flexing the muscles in his wrists and feet told him he'd been secured to a metal chair. They weren't likely to knock him out again, then. He opened his eyes. It took a moment to focus, but when they did he saw a wine cellar (not professional) and two men sitting on the stairs (very professional) watching him. One crunched into an apple, brown hair in a buzzcut, whipcord lean arms resting on his knees.  
  
"Good," the other said in heavily accented English. He was blond, big, with short hair and a hunting knife strapped to one hip. "We didn't want you to have damage."  
  
Eliot tugged experimentally at his arms. They'd been duct taped to the sides and back of the metal folding chair he sat in, one of them immobilized so completely that it couldn't be a good sign. He'd been with them long enough to have been moved, to be stripped shirtless and shoeless. His ankles and knees had been taped to the chair legs, as well. He glanced around, looking for any sign of how long he'd been out, how far they might have gotten. No windows. No outside light sources. Given the number of times he'd come to, hours seemed likely. His internal clock confirmed that. Flashes of memory -- a face, the blur of a bag, a rumbling truck, struggling before darkness reclaimed him -- only solidified it. The missing time was, in many ways, more disturbing than being held captive.  
  
The one who hadn't spoken stood, tossing an apple core into a wastebasket nearby. He stepped forward, and the crinkle of plastic drew Eliot's gaze down. They'd put a tarp across the floor, the same type someone might use for painting. Or hiding bodies. Under it, the wine cellar was earth. "We want to know who you were with," Apple said, stepping forward casually and pulling the oxygen mask off Eliot's face.  
  
He was too close; Eliot couldn't make eye contact. He stared at Knife instead, who'd remained seated, and kept his expression blank.  
  
"We know you were with someone," Apple continued, walking around behind Eliot.  
  
Metal clinked. Eliot realized with alarm that warmth radiated against his back and shoulders. When Apple stepped back into view, it was with a wooden-handled ladle. The ladle steamed.  
  
Knife spoke. "Our employer isn't set up for interrogations," he said with a chuckle. "But we've made do. He has a -- what would you call it? A--" He gestured with his hands, making a large circle in front of him. "--large bowl to have fire on the balcony."  
  
Eliot didn't twist to look behind him, though every animal instinct told him to. "Fire pit," he growled. His voice was hoarse, his throat sore. They wouldn't have damaged his windpipe; they'd taken the precaution of just sticking a bag over his head until he ran out of air, rather than pressing on his throat. Didn't mean it didn't hurt.  
  
"Fire pit," Apple repeated consideringly, and skimmed the bowl of the ladle across one of Eliot's shoulders.  
  
He tried to flinch away, but the tape held him fast. Eliot yelled. No point in holding out; gave them too much of an idea of your limits. Better to make them think they'd hurt you badly if they pushed.  
  
Plus, yelling was easier.  
  
Apple took the ladle away. Eliot breathed through his teeth, willing his heart to slow, his body not to gulp in air. There was plenty of it.  
  
Knife sat forward, his hands linked between his knees, and looked at Eliot without pleasure. "Who were you working with?"  
  
Eliot stared back. He could feel blisters forming along his shoulder. His hearing was funny; the earbud had been jammed farther down during the fight, rather than falling out. It still wasn't working, though. He gave Knife a flat look. "Girl Scouts. Payment was overdue."  
  
Apple huffed a quiet laugh. Metal clinked as the ladle came out of the fire pit again.  
  
**  
  
Nate paced the suite, gaze turned inward as his mind worked. "Get more information on the mark," he said, which was obvious and Haridson already was, duh. "We need to know where he eats, when he sleeps, how he takes his coffee. Everything. Do a work up on his family, friends, employees and associates. Let's find the ones both known and unknown."  
  
Hardison nodded -- it was no use saying, "Yeah, I'm doin' that," because Nate wouldn't hear him -- and hammered across his keyboard furiously.  
  
"Anything you missed the first time through," Nate finished, looking up. "Sophie--"  
  
She spoke quickly, accent sharper. "When we know more, prepare to get in?"  
  
"Yeah. Any idea when the earbuds will start working?"  
  
Hardison pushed back from his laptop, closing his eyes tightly for a moment before opening them wide, trying to re-focus. He'd been on the computer for three hours, driving or searching before that. He glanced at the clock on his laptop without meaning to. Four hours since Eliot had been taken. Four hours since the earbuds died. "Nah, man. Chaos adapted my EMP tech and  _sold_  it." Bastard. "I don't know if the earbuds will even come back on." Which was why they'd called Nate and Sophie in the first place, soon as they realized Eliot wasn't making the rendezvous.  
  
Hardison's gaze flickered toward Parker, huddled on the easy chair, staring at the rising sun. She hadn't taken it well. At least some luck was running in their favor: Nate and Sophie had only been a country away, and in Europe that was nothing.  
  
"Okay, look," Hardison said, pushing his attention back to his info. "The mark's supposed to be heading to some gala tomorrow night, but it's three hours south of here at his summer home. Sophie, I can spoof you some tickets and..." Move that image over, fade it down with photoshop, hack into the hotel's printers, throw together an ID -- he'd have to back it up later...  
  
"Good, good," Nate said. "I'll go too. You have more earbuds?"  
  
"'Course." Hardison gestured toward his duffel. They dug through, setting aside his tiny glass castle of multi-sided dice and muttering under their breaths. Ingrates. "Hey, hey," Hardison said sharply. "Don't go mocking D&D, a'ight? That there's a classic. A  _classic_ , man."  
  
Nate barked back. "Do your job, Hardison. Do your job, and maybe Eliot won't--"  
  
Anger and guilt rushed one behind the other, and Hardison was pretty sure guilt was egging anger on. "Maybe what, Nate? I  _did_  my job. I didn't get him--"  
  
"That's not fair--" Sophie began, and at least she was talking to Nate because otherwise Hardison would have been  _more_  pissed.  
  
Static interrupted them all. The defunct earbuds lay scattered across the table, the feed from them looping through the laptop speakers. Sophie's and Nate's voices came through loud and clear suddenly, with static hissing through the rest.  
  
"Hang on, I got this," Hardison said, slapping his hand over one of them and fumbling it off, while Parker leaped from her chair and got the other one.  
  
Which left them with only static, squealing and spitting at them.  
  
"That's Eliot's?" Nate said sharply. "What's that mean? It's in water?"  
  
"No, man, it would just stop working if it were in water. It's--" he paused, trying to clear up the signal, trying to boost it. "It's transmitting, but too far for much to come through..." Except, wonder of wonders, the GPS had enough of a signal. "I got him." Relief rippled through the room, Sophie giving a quick laugh. Then Hardison had to break the bad news. "Three hours south of here, looks like."  
  
There was a beat of silence. "Well," Nate said at last. "Looks like we're all heading toward the mark, then."  
  
Parker began to speak. "I'll get my--"  
  
A hoarse scream cut through the static, broke off, was followed by  _"--tell us--"_  and then the hissing washed it away.  
  
"Eliot!" Parker yelled, as if volume would help. She snatched up her comm, shoving it into her ear. "Eliot, we're here! Just hang on!"  
  
Silence met them.  
  
"Eliot!" Parker shouted, louder this time.  
  
"He can't hear you, Mama," Hardison murmured, sorry for the truth, sorry she hadn't realized it.  
  
Parker turned away from him, one hand pressed to her ear, fumbling the comm in. "Eliot! Can - you - hear - me?"  
  
"He can't hear you!" Hardison yelled back, grabbing her by the shoulders and trying to get her to see him. "That static, Parker, he's too far away. The comms aren't made to travel that far. It's a miracle we heard him at all."  
  
She stared at him as if he were speaking gibberish, and for a moment he found himself wondering if this really was the straw that broke the Parker's back.  
  
Then she shook him off, stalking away, earbud still in. "Then what do we do now?"  
  
"We pack up." There was an edge to Nate's voice. "We head south. Hardison, you're in the back. Keep digging."  
  
**  
  
He'd thought he'd heard--  
  
But hadn't. Static, yes. Hissing in his ear like a nest of angry wasps, stinging with fire-hot steel across his chest and shoulder.  
  
"This could stop," one of them -- he'd lost track, but he thought it was Apple -- said, leaning down to murmur in his ear. All he could think was,  _don't check the other ear._  Instead of saying anything, Eliot turned and bit down on the first skin he could reach. The edge of Apple's jaw.  
  
Apple jerked back silently, and a moment later a plastic bag was shoved over Eliot's head. He took a breath just before they cinched it, but knew what was coming. They weren't going to make him hold his breath.  
  
Nothing, at first. Then his head began to ache. His lungs burned. His heartbeat pounded in his chest. Thu-thump. Thu-thump. Muscles tried to force the air out. He exhaled finally because he couldn't keep it in anymore. In three minutes he started to twitch, even knowing it would do no good. His body broke free of his will and worked of its own accord, trying to inhale. Plastic covered his nose and mouth, sealing air out. In three minutes and forty-two seconds instinct overran thought completely. He thrashed, panic hitting his hind brain as adrenaline flooded his system. He couldn't breathe. Everything screamed inside him. The static in his ear was drowned out by the thunder of his heart, trying to push oxygen-deprived blood through his body. _He couldn't breathe._ Only the tape kept his heels from drumming against the floor. His fingers curled.  
  
The world grayed. With a last few hopeless jerks, his body stilled. His lungs worked silently, tiny spasms as they tried to bring in air. Then that stopped, too. He sank.  
  
And woke as they yanked the bag off, replacing it with the oxygen mask. Eliot gulped air. It was easy to breath hard and fast. He kept it up after he didn't need to, knowing what would come next. Knowing that having extra air would only prolong the inevitable, but--  
  
They yanked off the mask, and shoved the bag back over his head. Someone spoke. "We don't need to keep doing this. We'd rather not give you brain damage, you see. But we'll warm you up a little more before we ask you to talk, again."  
  
 _Fat fucking chance,_ Eliot didn't say.  
  
In two minutes and fifty-one seconds he started to twitch again.  
  
**  
  
Nate had rented a van. Even he knew it wasn't as good as Lucille, but Hardison hadn't complained. No one had complained about anything, even when Parker had insisted the first aid kit -- Nate didn't know where she'd gotten it, but it couldn't be defined as a  _kit_  -- stay up near the front.  
  
Hardison just took the back bench seat wordlessly, and rattled out any information he discovered on their mark. They'd only been driving for about fifteen minutes when Hardison went silent and still. Nate could see him in the rear view mirror.  
  
"Jamse might have ties to Colombian gun runners," he said woodenly. "His daughter's married to one. Reports say they're estranged since the Colombian she married is, y'know, not white, and he's all with the racism, but it's in his email right here. The estrangement's an act for his White Supremacist buddies."  
  
"Great," Nate said, tone laden with sarcasm. "What else did Eliot get?"  
  
"About half the computer, before it was hit by the EMP cannon," Hardison answered. "Most of it's financials, emails, some business graphs. There's a coded chunk I'm still working on."  
  
Nate nodded. The background static -- Eliot's earbud, transmitting through the computer and into the van so they could all listen for him -- was almost unnoticeable. Until it was completely noticeable. It came in waves. Nate's hands tightened on the steering wheel while the static filled his head, driving out plans and plots and options. It receded again, slowly, when he forced himself to concentrate.  
  
Paperwork was good. They could do something with that. Gun running was bad. He tried not to think about what Jamse wanted from Eliot.  
  
**  
  
They'd stopped with the bag. They'd started on his toenails. The room was cool, but Eliot was sweating anyway. It ran down his chest and sides, sliding into burns and causing flares of pain that only added to the melee.  
  
He didn't bother trying not to scream.  
  
"All we want to know," Knife said, standing at Eliot's shoulder where Eliot couldn't see him or what he did, "is who you were working with, and what you wanted." He came around. The blade of his knife was blackened from fire, glowing slightly along the edge, and smoking.  
  
Eliot's breath came quicker. He tried to lean away, told himself not to, felt the duct tape catch at arms and wrists and ankles and knees. Told himself it'd all be over soon, one way or another. Braced himself and refused to budge.  
  
No one resisted torture. It was just a matter of how long you could hold out. And to give the others enough time to escape for good, he could hold out forever.  
  
As the blade came down against his toes, cauterizing his nailbeds, he began to scream again.  
  
******************************


	3. Chapter 3

The static cut out while they were going 160 klicks down the French freeway. A scream ripped through the air, hoarse and broken. Everyone jumped. The van swerved.  


Sophie screamed too, covering her mouth and ending with a muffled, "Eliot!"

Parker unbuckled and fought her way through the supplies to stand between the chairs, as close as she could get to the computer and their link to Eliot. Hardison was slapping at a button, shouting. "Eliot! Eliot, man, we're on our way. Just -- just hang on, okay?"

Static cut in, then out. A new voice spoke. _"--tell us what we want to know. There was a woman with you. We could start simple. Tell us who she was."_

Tension snapped through Parker. "Eliot, just tell them," she said loudly, knowing he could hear her. "Tell them!"

 _"Go to hell."_ Eliot's voice was roughened and faint, like he'd nearly screamed himself out. She could hear him panting heavily. He sounded like he'd been running. Or fighting.

He didn't scream again. There was a bitten-back sound, a shattered gasp, and finally a noise like a drowning man, short of a scream or a cry but halfway between both.

"Just tell them, Eliot!" Parker shouted, nails biting so hard into the shoulders of the bucket seats that one tore.

Eliot was breathing again. _"Not telling you shit,"_ he said raggedly. _"You just **don't listen."**_

Hardison's head snapped up and around the van. "Was that to us?"

 _"Yeah,"_ Eliot gasped, _"you heard me."_

"We're not leaving you--" Sophie began, while Nate said, "We need to know the extent of your injuries so--" and Hardison babbled, "We know you're brave and all--"

 _"Stop!"_ Eliot bellowed. He gasped. Relief, Parker thought.

The voice on the other end spoke, French accent heavy. _"You'll talk?"_

"Just tell him, Eliot," Parker said into the silence. "Just tell him it's me. My name's already known."

Eliot remained silent.

Sophie pushed past Parker, snagging one of the earbuds out of the cupholder where Hardison had put them. "What channel is he on?"

"What? Three, but--"

Sophie put it in her ear, listened, and then nodded, satisfied. "Turn off the computer. He doesn't want everyone listening, you need to work and Nate needs to drive, and I can tell you what sort of medical help he'll need."

From the computer, Eliot's breath caught. A cry was choked, but not silenced.

"Turn it off!" Sophie snapped.

Hardison did, as if Sophie had his hand on a string and just yanked it to the correct button.

Sophie put her fingers to the earbud, expression pained, as she stumbled toward her seat at the front. "Eliot, we're two hours from your location. We're coming as fast as we can."

**

Having Sophie in his ear wasn't any better than having the whole team in his ear. He stopped screaming. It made the pain worse; screaming was an outlet, meant you could hit harder or take more punishment. But he couldn't scream if Sophie could hear him.

His captors noticed.

He worked at the duct tape, focusing on his right arm. His left was more firmly bound, taped from bicep to elbow and mid-forearm to wrist. It gave him something to think about other than the fact that anything could happen in two hours, and the pain that ravaged him.

Sophie was, thankfully, quiet. He could almost forget she was there. That he was supposed to be indestructible.

When he ran out of toenails on his left foot they got bored and shifted to his hands. Anxiety coiled through him. He needed his hands. He curled them into fists as best he could, stopped by the duct tape twisted between each finger. His palms were free. It was something he hadn't particularly noticed until he heard the tink of a metal spoon on the edge of the fire pit. He was sure they made those noises on purpose. Half of torture was psychological.

His breath came faster. He couldn't keep silent forever. His eyes and nose had been running for some time. He was going to kill them. He clung to that thought, tried to ignore the heat approaching his hand, tried to think instead of how he'd take them out when the time came.

His whole body spasmed as his palm began to sizzle.

**

Sophie yanked the earbud out, clamping a hand over her mouth. She'd been crying silently for a while, make-up running in dark, bruise-colored streaks down her face. Every time Parker looked around they were all pretending not to notice. Sometimes Sophie hid behind curls of nearly black hair, but she wasn't now.

"Sophie?" Nate asked sharply.

"I -- I can't -- I don't know what they're doing, listening doesn't help, he doesn't want us there--"

Parker reached up past Sophie, grabbing the comm and yanking it free of Sophie's hand. "We're not leaving him alone," she practically snarled.

"Parker, don't--"

"I can--" Nate began.

"You're driving. Hardison's working. Sophie--" Parker glanced at Sophie, whose face was turned away, and shook her head, tight-lipped. "Sophie already had her turn. It's me, Nate. I'm why he's there. He was covering for me, they're asking about me." She fit the earbud into her ear, and didn't wince as the raw scream came through loud and clear. "Me and Eliot," she said quietly, settling back into her seat, "we're the ones made for this."

She closed her mind against what she was hearing, closed her eyes to focus. Just focus. Like anything else. Ignore the pain, because paying attention to it before you could do anything about it would get you killed. "Eliot," she said quietly. "We need to know what your injuries are. You need to tell us. If I have to steal an ambulance, I need to know."

Her words were soft, cutting under the ragged gasps that followed the scream. After a moment, when Eliot caught his breath, he spoke. _"I'm not telling you anything. You're gonna kill me soon as I do."_

"He's seen their faces," Parker reported. "He says they'll kill him when they don't have any use for him." Sophie rustled in the front seat, and Parker glanced at her. She was getting paper, a pen, making notes. Good.

 _"You can,"_ Eliot panted, _"burn me and rip out nails... all you like... but dying's... bigger incentive."_

Parker closed her eyes again. Push away the pain, focus on the facts. "It's likely superficial damage." And Eliot would tell her if she was wrong. "Eliot, when you can, describe where you are."

He laughed. It was supposed to sound contemptuous, she knew, and it did. But it also sounded labored. _"And your boss... he's an amateur. I mean, a wine cellar? Really?"_

**

He'd started suppressing his screams. Started talking. They weren't stupid; their boss might have been an amateur, but they weren't. It was bad, changing tactics. Made them realize something had changed, too, even if they only thought he was closer to breaking.

He couldn't help being relieved anyway when they retreated out of the wine cellar to conference, leaving him sagging on his chair, listening to Parker's voice giving him orders.

Orders were better than silence, he discovered. He could follow orders, think about that instead of what was happening. It gave him something to hang on to.

When his captors returned, he looked up. Forced a smirk past the dread snaking heavy through his gut. "Pliers? Really? That's old school."

**

Hardison had finally put on headphones when Parker had helped Nate gang up on him, blocking out the things Parker reported so he could concentrate instead.

Nate checked him in the rear view mirror again to make sure Hardison was concentrating. He was.

Sophie pressed herself against the handle of the door, as if ready to spring out the instant the van stopped. Her tendons stood out in stark relief in her wrist, knuckles pressing the blood from the skin sheathing them.

"You have to make them think it hurts," Parker hammered out. "Scream. Eliot! Scream!" She froze, face taut. Then let out a breath and nodded once. "Better. You can't go being all tough on this one. They'll get too good an idea of your limits."

**

Eliot wanted to laugh. _Parker_ was telling _him_ about anti-torture techniques?

He let his head hang so the blood wouldn't drain down his throat and make him sick. Besides, blood pouring out of someone's mouth, down their chin and chest, always made it seem like they were hurt worse than they were, which meant his captors would be more careful not to do anything that could kill him. They needed him alive to talk. Any edge he could get was a plus.

His molar lay on the tarp by his foot. It was an implant. The real one had hurt a lot more coming out. He'd lost consciousness then; this time, though the world had spun and grayed out, he'd remained mostly aware. He wasn't sure which was better. "How long," he croaked, blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth, "have we been at this?"

"Oh, about twenty minutes," his captors said, while Parker gave him the truth: _"We gained contact with you an hour ago. We'll be there in another hour. You just have to last a little longer."_

They'd gone through nails, burns, hands, teeth. They had to start on more permanent things, if they were going to keep at this route. "Don't have," he breathed, trying to keep it quiet enough for his captors not to hear, "that long."

Silence. Then Parker spoke, but not to him. _"We need a game changer, guys. Eliot, we can't call emergency. The police are in Jamse's pocket. You'd be dead once you got to the hospital."_

He looked up as his captors shifted, preparing something. When he could see what they were doing, he almost sagged in relief.

One of them had a syringe. "Truth serum?" he croaked for the team's benefit.

"We were going to lead with it," Knife said, smirking, "but the delivery only just arrived."

**

"Uh, guys? What do you know about truth serum?" Parker asked, looking around in concern. "Is it going to make Eliot tell the truth?"

Nate answered. "It makes people talk. But -- but it doesn't necessarily make them tell the truth. It'll make him fuzzy-headed. Lies are hard to come up with and easy to spot. It'll--"

Nate kept rambling on, but Parker tuned him out. On the comm, she heard Eliot grunt, hiss, and spit. The French voice said, _"There, now. Let's just give you a few minutes to steep."_

Parker closed her eyes, blocking everything else out. "Eliot, listen to me. You repeat what I say." Then she looked up, first at Nate and then twisting to see Hardison. "If I make up a bunch of lies, think they'll check them and hurt him worse?"

"Better than telling the truth." There was a note of warning in Nate's tone. "If whatever you tell them is true, they'll kill him once they realize it."

Parker nodded and curled back up in her seat, eyes closed again. "Okay, Eliot. I can hear what they ask you, so just say what I say. We're on our way. We'll take care of this."

**

It wasn't so much that he hated truth serum. The stuff was a joke, if you were strong enough to babble without listening to what they wanted. But he hated the way it made the world smear around him, colors running together and sounds booming neon through the air. He hated how it took away his control.

Without drugs, he could refuse to talk. He could bite back a scream. Even strapped to a chair he could still make a _choice._ It took that away.

Whatever they'd given him was special. Nerves that had dulled to an aching throb, exhausted from sending signals, started to fire again. His exposed nailbeds, the burns that had never stopped hurting, the bloody hole in the back of his mouth, all clamored for attention.

Someone moaned piteously. Parker spoke in his ear. _"Eliot? What's wrong?"_

He answered without thinking, the word slurring across his tongue and sending spikes of pain through his lower jaw. "Hur's."

Someone grabbed his chin and tipped his head up, peering into his eyes. In his peripheral vision, the shadows twitched. He flicked his gaze toward them, but nothing was there. Something else moved, though, at the corner of his eye. Something _slithered_ through the darkness, and was gone when he looked.

The man holding his face chuckled and let go. "It's good, _oui_? Heightens senses, among other things. I would imagine it does hurt. It's fantastic during sex, as long as you leave out the truth serum part."

A different chuckle rumbled around the room, echoing off shelves. The wine bottles glittered, reflecting eyes. Yellow eyes.

Eliot clenched his eyes shut. Something nibbled at his toes. He yelled and jerked, and a fresh wave of pain washed up his leg, knotting the muscles. Sweat dripped down into burns. Someone groaned. Parker was talking, but it wasn't to him. He hoped it wasn't to him. It was too fast, too many questions and answers being shot around.

Pain rose higher. He started to shiver. His stomach cramped. God, it felt like the burns were _spreading._

"All right, easy," one of the voices said. "We don't want you passing out, now."

A cool cloth was laid across his shoulder, draping down over one of the worst burns. It eased the pain. Eliot shuddered. Another cloth, this filled with the familiar shape and coldness of ice, was placed in his palm. He tried to curl his fingers, to hold onto it, but agony shot along his nerves. Someone tore duct tape. It screeched across his spine, making him twitch, and then pressed against his hand, holding the ice in place.

"There, better, right?"

He nodded, his head feeling disjointed from his agonized body. The world twisted and turned like a crashing plane (was he on a plane? He'd been on a plane...) and he froze, willing it to stop. Creatures crawled through the shadows, but when he looked at them they vanished, only to reappear at the edges of his vision. They were hiding behind him. He knew it, could feel rat teeth preparing to gnaw on him. (Don't go to sleep. If you do, the rats will get you.) Someone was gasping for air, breath rattling in the room, giving away their location. He choked on blood. Eliot dropped his head, coughing and spitting the blood out. One of his teeth was down there, but the joke was on them because someone else had already taken his bottom molars and that one wasn't real.

God, he hurt. It was blinding. He closed his eyes, but the pain showed up under his lids as flashes of red and beady little eyes that glowed in the dark.

Someone gripped his chin. He opened his eyes. The man spoke slowly. "Who were you working with?"

Couldn't tell them couldn't tell them couldn't tell them--

He was already talking when Parker's voice cut in. _"Jessica Norton."_

He clung to those words, a raft in an ocean of sharks, and let them repeat from his lips without thinking about it.

"Good, good." The face in front of him smiled. "And what were you looking for?"

"Blackmail material," Parker said in Eliot's voice, and he wondered how she'd taken his vocal cords over like that.

Something wriggled in the corner of his vision, and he tried to twist to see it. Fingers bit into his jaw, pressing on the hole where his molar had been. A cry ripped from his throat before he could stop it.

"Good," the voice said again. "You just sit here and steep, then, and we'll see if you're telling the truth."

"s'true," Eliot mumbled, trying to breathe through the pain.

**

Hardison pulled his gaze away from Parker's face with difficulty. She was ashen, her lips tight, her eyes big. Wherever she was looking, it wasn't here in the car.

"I've got the alias set up," Hardison said hoarsely. "Enough to lead them on for a while before they realize it's fake. It should give Eliot a break without killing him." He licked his lips and glanced at Parker.

She was still ashen. "Something's wrong," she said quietly when she caught him looking.

Nate heard. "What? What's wrong?"

Parker squirmed in her seat, all tucked up into the bucket, her shins against the armrest. "He's... making noises."

Sophie, this time, her voice softened for Parker's sake. "What kind of noises?"

Parker lifted one lean shoulder and let it drop. "Hurt noises."

"It's the drugs, baby," Hardison said quietly, reaching between the seats to wrap a lock of spun-blond hair around his finger. "It's just the drugs. They're gonna make him a little crazy. You want one of us to spell you?"

She shook her head sharply, the line of her mouth firming. "It's fine."

Hardison didn't point out that nothing about this was fine. He went back to his computers. "Chaos's security is good, but I think I'm finally getting into the last level. It must have whatever they think Eliot was after." He stopped talking when Parker started again, tabbing open a new window to write down whatever she said -- whatever lies he might have to make real.

But she wasn't telling Eliot anything; she was asking. The van fell silent except for her voice, soft but firm. "What's in the corners, Eliot?"

Hardison pulled one of the earbuds out of the cup holder, fitting it to his own ear. Eliot's voice was broken, cracking in between words, so heavily slurred Hardison could barely understand him. _"--ners. Ra's maybe. Bite -- shit--"_

Another voice, distant, accented. _"I think you get amazing nightmares, don't you? Tell me about them."_

_"Fuc'in ra's an--"_

"Rainbows and sunbeams, Eliot," Parker cut in urgently.

_"Rain'ows an' sun'eams--"_

Hardison pulled the comm out. At the questioning look from Nate, shot through the rear view mirror, he said, "She's giving him new nightmares."

Nate nodded as if it made perfect sense, then elaborated when Hardison kept staring at him, confused. "One of two things. Either Parker doesn't want to know about his nightmares, or she doesn't want his captors using them against him."

Between them, Parker was saying, "--and then the sunbeams get super bright and -- and smiley. Very creepy kind of smiley."

"Thirty minutes," Sophie said quietly.

Hardison turned back to his computers.

**

They were filling another syringe. The creepies in the corners had begun to settle, the pain had started to ease. The world was still smeared and slow, but whatever additive they'd put in the truth serum was wearing off.

Short half-life, he filed away somewhere. Strong effects.

"Tell us something you don't want people to know." The syringe came nearer. He twisted to follow it behind him.

_"Ummm..."_

"I hate nee'les," Eliot found himself mumbling. "An' hos'itals." A hand settled on his arm, outside the duct tape. He couldn't twist away as the metal pricked his skin, slid under and into a vein. He took a breath to shove down panic.

Obviously, the drugs weren't out of his system. He heard his own voice, "Fuck," and Parker's, " _Just -- just hang on, Eliot,"_ and his captor's chuckle.

The needle slid out, poison injected, and the man stepped away. Eliot's breath was coming too fast. His captor leaned down to make eye-contact. "There are some red flags in your story. Do you want to tell us anything?"

"I'ma kill you," Eliot slurred.

The man at the computer swiveled. "Eliot Spencer. Found you." He smiled. Eliot rocked back. The man's teeth were pointed and bleeding and glowing. One fell out, was replaced by another.

Eliot took a shaky breath, another. The world swam. Panic roared through his head. Parker spoke, _"--just the drugs, Eliot, try to breathe normal--"_ God, if there was an earbud surely they'd have found it. Parker was dead and haunting him he hadn't succeeded at all in keeping her safe, this was all for nothing.

Maybe this was hell. After everything--

Demon eyes glinted from the shadows. Things wriggled in the dark. Pain sluiced up his foot, up his leg, across his chest, seared through his hand, crashed in his jaw. Someone grabbed his hair and yanked his head around so he was forced to stare at one of his captors, but the man's skin was peeling away, showing muscle and bone beneath, dripping acid instead of blood onto his legs and the man was speaking as if he didn't even notice, "Tell us who you were really working with."

Parker's voice in his ear, and if she were haunting him then the least he could do was say what she wanted-- "Jessica Norton." He stuttered over the words. The monsters weren't happy with that answer. One yanked his head back farther, and the other had burning red metal instead of a hand that slid inches from his face and down his chest and said, "This is _really_ going to hurt."

**

"I got it," Hardison crowed, as the last of Chaos's security finally fell. "That's right, baby, I _am_ the champion, winner of the Last Orc Wars, defeater of the Sith--"

" _Hardison_!" Nate and Sophie yelled as one. His head snapped up. Parker's eyes were closed, one hand clamped over her mouth, her forehead pressed into her knees.

"Sending the information to your phones," he said, tapping a few keys. "Jamse's in bed with his son-in-law, the gun runner, but also with the local drug cartel. The three of them have a consortium of sorts, mutually beneficial. The Supremacists and drug runners need guns, everyone needs drugs, and they launder each other's money through semi-legal channels. But, what Jamse likely doesn't want anyone to know is that he's made this side-deal with a pharmaceutical company. They're giving him better drugs than anyone else, and there's talks to cut the drug dealers out entirely. 'Course--"

"The drug cartel would kill him for it, unless he set the police on them and kept them too busy to do so," Nate finished. He glanced at Sophie. She glanced at him.

"Bolivian Landslide?" she suggested, looking more alert than she had in a while.

"It's quick and messy, but it'll do for now. We'll have to watch and make sure that he goes down. I don't trust him not to slip away."

Sophie was already dialing. "We know where he's going to be tomorrow night?"

"Sending you the address right now," Hardison said.

"Parker," Nate barked. "Time to call emergency. Let's get Eliot out of there."

"But the police--"

Nate's eyes were flinty. "We're going to steal an Eliot. Hardison, here's what I want you to do--"

**

Voices babbled at him in words he didn't understand. He didn't know what had happened to the monsters. They were gone. They'd scurried away only moments before, leaving him in the dark when the voices had come tumbling down the stairway.

Someone pulled his head back, peered into his eyes. Someone else produced a claw -- no, a knife -- and came toward him.

Eliot couldn't stop struggling if he wanted to. And he did. Words cascaded over him, sounds he didn't understand. The knife came behind him. Something tore. Something tugged at his arms. Someone was putting a mask over his face. Gas -- they were going to gas him --

He tried to twist away, but it didn't work. More tearing, and then they were lifting him, laying him out on a board, strapping him in, picking him up.

Parker's voice in his ear. _"They're going to take care of you. Don't fight them. Just go. We'll be right there."_

So his ghost was still with him. Drugs coursed through his system, and the world wheeled by too fast to stop. He didn't really have a choice.

**

Parker tugged an ID free as she walked. It was easy; doctors in emergency rooms weren't looking for thieves in France any more than they were in the US. Within minutes she had the required badges and had ducked back out to the parking lot, hopping into the van and passing the badges to Hardison and Nate.

Sophie was on the phone again, speaking in French and gesturing with annoyance, as if whoever she was on the phone with could see.

Nate and Hardison were donning scrubs and lab coats and Sophie, still on the phone, began folding up and removing the van seats to make room for the gurney. Parker stepped back onto the sidewalk and glanced over the building.

She paused when uniforms caught her eye. The doctors and police here were just like the doctors and police in the US, except some of the police had funny little sailor hats. These ones were bare-headed, though, and overtly casual as they walked toward the hospital.

"Guys," Parker said into the comm, "hurry up. We have company."

 _"He's safe as long as he's being treated, Parker,"_ Nate reminded her, already halfway to the building. _"We'll be there when he gets out."_

**

The hard part was not letting anyone call them to help with a patient. Mostly, Hardison kept his head down, ignored everyone, and pretended to be checking patient files while actually hacking the system.

"This would have been so much easier if they'd had any kind of uplink," he muttered to himself, cursing old computer systems that didn't bother with internet, much less wifi. "Parker, the locks should be accessible... now."

There was a click over the comm. _"I still say I could have picked it."_

Hardison glared at the screen, since he couldn't glare at her. "No one is questioning your superior thieving skills, it's just faster this way." He checked the security feeds, watched her close the door behind her to the locked medication room and step back under the camera, out of sight. "All right," he said, taking Eliot's medical chart as Nate handed it off and kept moving. "I'm gonna read the things we need, and you just take as much as you can. First, for the burns..."

**

Nate tuned out Parker and Hardison, striding quickly down the corridor. Someone called for him in French -- "Doctor, if you have a minute--"-- but he kept walking as if he hadn't heard.

Eliot hadn't needed surgery. Nate had already been into his room once, retrieving the medical chart. Hopefully he'd return it -- Hardison had the copy -- before anyone was the wiser.

Eliot was still sedated when he swished the curtain open. They hadn't given Eliot a room with walls, though they had called the police. Those Nate caught sight of coming leisurely down the hall, aware their captive was still unconscious and only barely out of treatment. There wasn't much time. "Hurry it up, guys," he murmured, then yanked the curtain closed behind him and smiled brightly at the nurse who was re-bandaging Eliot's chest. Nate didn't look. He didn't have time to be alarmed.

His French was fluent, but accented. He spoke fast and with an air of contempt, goading her into action before she could think. "What are you doing? That was supposed to have been done by now. Didn't you get the orders? We're moving him to another facility." He tossed the chart on the end of the bed, leaning down to unlock the wheels. When he straightened, she was staring at him.

"And just who are you?" she asked.

He sneered. "The man who will discuss your pay and position with Director Gerold if you don't hurry up."

A look of alarm flashed across her face, and she quickly started adjusting machines to move Eliot.

Police boots stopped just outside the curtain. "This way," Nate said swiftly, pulling aside the curtain that separated the rooms. "There is a gurney blocking the hall over there." He pulled the bed through before she had a chance to object, and then she was running with him, through the neighboring rooms and out into the hall.

The police stood just outside Eliot's curtain, talking quietly between themselves. Nate didn't look at them again as he wheeled Eliot down the hall, the nurse trotting to keep up, IV bag with her.

"I could use a hand here," Nate growled, looking away so she wouldn't see him talk.

Hardison, who was supposed to be on the other end of the gurney, practically yelped. _"I'm a little busy! They hadn't uploaded the rest of his treatments yet, and the tests are still out on whatever drugs our buddies gave him."_

 _"There's a problem with the van,"_ Sophie said over the comms. _"The folding mechanism is broken. The rental agency just confirmed that. They said if we wanted more space, we should have gotten a truck."_

Nate winced. He yelled for someone to hold the elevator as the doors started to close, managed to zip Eliot in beside a laundry cart, and watched as the police finally checked his room, realized he was gone, and began to look around with alarm.

The elevator descended.

"Find some alternate transport, people," Nate mumbled.

"Pardon?" the nurse asked.

"Ah," Nate fumbled for a moment, then said in French, "We need to hurry."

The doors opened after what seemed like forever. Parker smiled at him from the other side, wearing scrubs and carrying a duffel bag.

"Ah, my operating assistant," Nate said brightly. "She'll take over from here."

Parker elbowed in, dropping the bag on Eliot's legs -- Nate winced -- and taking the IV bag from the nurse. The nurse didn't look happy about it, but there wasn't much she could do short of tackle Parker. Nate had a suspicion that no one tackled Parker because instinct warned them away.

_"All right, they won't have the test results back for hours, so I added a wifi connector onto the main frame. Long as no one unplugs the USB--"_

"Great, Hardison, just hurry up. Sophie, how's our transportation?"

**

Sophie winced as the ambulance driver convulsed and dropped to the foot area of the vehicle. "Ready." She'd _known_ Parker would have a Taser in her bag. "Head for the ambulance out back." Sophie shoved the body out the passenger side where no one would see it -- at least until they drove away. "Ooh, sorry." She winced as the man landed hard. "But there's a hospital right here, so I wouldn't worry too much."

 _"What?"_ That was Nate, sounding confused and annoyed all at once.

"Nothing."

The back doors boomed open. Sophie leaped out of the ambulance cab, rushing around to see Parker and Nate wheeling Eliot out. Parker passed the IV bag on to Sophie, heading for the front of the vehicle. "They'll have GPS tracking or some sort of Blackjack. Just gotta get that off before we leave..." Parker rolled to her back on the asphalt and scooted under the engine.

Nate took the head of the gurney, climbing into the ambulance and folding the legs up with him. Sophie braced while he came back out, and together they pushed the gurney all the way in.

Hospital doors opened behind them, and two orderlies stepped out. "Who's being transported?"

Hardison came racing out of the bay, dropped to a brisk walk, and handed over paperwork to them. "Commands from on high."

His accent, Sophie thought with a wince, was atrocious. She sidled sideways to block any view of Parker's legs the newcomers might have.

Hardison turned to convince them, Nate swung into the driver's seat, Parker vanished underneath and Sophie climbed in to sit with Eliot.

When seconds passed and Hardison was still arguing with them, Sophie leaned out, gave them her best angry-Eliot-stare, and said in Italian, "The duke waits."

Sophie always figured "duke" was translatable to anyone.

The two orderlies arguing with Hardison looked surprised and alarmed. It was all the time Hardison needed to turn and climb into the ambulance.

"Let's go," Sophie said, grabbing hold of the gurney with one hand and the hold bar with the other. She didn't look at Eliot, thankful he was drugged into a stupor at the moment. She'd have to deal with what had happened later. Right now, they needed to get somewhere so they could ditch the van, get a new transport, and find a hotel.

Easy, for a group of cons.

******************

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	4. Chapter 4

Pain woke him. The kind of pain that meant you'd been really hurting a while ago, and now it was the dull throb that would stick around until you were ready to hack a limb off to stop it.

He was groggy and slow, and the hurt was growing rapidly. He'd been on drugs, then, and they'd worn off.

It became more obvious he'd been on drugs when he heard voices, and realized those weren't what had woken him. For a moment he tensed. Then he recognized them, and relief flooded through. Tension he hadn't been aware of washed away, leaving him light headed.

"--see why we don't just go home and--" Parker.

"No, no." Nate. "Those were some important people you three pissed off--"

"Don't start with that again." Sophie, irritated.  
  
"--and we need to make sure they aren't going to come after us. We need to take him _down_."

"Besides," Sophie again, "Eliot can't fly with that fracture in his jaw. The pressure changes would be too painful. We should get rid of Jamse, and then we can get to England. I have people in England who will help on the hush-hush until Eliot can make it home."

Good God, if they were planning his life he needed to get out there. Eliot levered himself up, hissing as pain confirmed for him that, yes, the meds were wearing off.

He was in a bedroom. A hotel, clearly, from the bland painting on the wall. The nightstand was cluttered with pill bottles, glass bottles of liquid meds, syringes and capped needles. Bandages and ointments were littered over the nearby chair. That, more than anything, made him grimace. Bad enough that they'd heard him while he'd been captured, that Parker and Sophie had heard more, but that they'd doctored him, too...

He pushed it out of his mind. Worse things had happened. More embarrassing things had happened. He glanced down, taking stock before he tried to stand.

Bandages swathed his bare chest and shoulder, smaller ones down the lengths of his arms. He peeled one of those back carefully, and was relieved to see that the skin was just raw and angry from the duct tape getting ripped off. No injuries he didn't remember.

There was bruising along the inside of one elbow. He let his gaze skid over it. More bandages around his foot, and his toes throbbed in time to his heartbeat. He'd live, though. Just had to keep from thinking about it too much, that was all.

Despite the fractures in his jaw -- those had to be minor cracks where the screws had been yanked out, or his jaw would have been wired shut -- his hand was, he suspected, the worst. Bandaged so heavily he couldn't see his fingers, much less move them, he knew he'd have to check on the severity of the burn sometime.

But not now. He stood with difficulty, grabbing the nightstand with his good hand. Walking was a hell unto itself. They might not have broken any toes, but with the nails ripped off any pressure on his foot felt like his blood and bones were going to push through the tops of his exposed nail beds. He leaned on the nightstand, then the wall, then the door frame. He'd broken out in a fresh sweat by the time he opened the door, bumping it with his knee. Thank God they hadn't latched it.

The world spun again. Eliot hated the silence that fell into the room, especially as he couldn't properly glare when he couldn't properly see.

"Eliot," Sophie said first. "Are you sure you should be up?"

He heard her footsteps, sensed her nearness, and held up his bandaged hand to stop her. "Don't. Touch." He wished he was wearing more than pajama bottoms (and really hoped it wasn't anyone on this team who'd put them on him). His vision cleared slowly.

Everyone was staring at him as if he might fall over at any moment, except for Parker who was studying her fraying shoelace. Perfect.

"I'm not gonna die," he snapped, his voice hoarse. "But Nate's right. My bet is if they went this far, they're hiding something they want to stay hidden." He swallowed, wincing when it pulled on the holes in the back of his mouth. At least gums stopped bleeding quickly. "Hardison?"

"Don't you want some pain meds or something? We've got morphine. I know you don't like needles--"

 _God_ he didn't want to think about what they'd heard. "Damn it, Hardison," he snapped, "of course I want pain meds, and if it weren't so damn far away I'd get them! Come 'ere!"

Hardison hopped up like Eliot had whipped him, bounding near, an overeager puppy. He got the idea when Eliot pushed away from the door, balancing precariously with his weight on one foot, his good arm up and out so Hardison could duck under it.

Hardison did, bending a little so he didn't yank Eliot right up off the floor. His hand was over-warm on Eliot's side, but he remembered to hold low, under the bandages, and he was strong enough to lift Eliot's weight so there really wasn't any pressure on his bad foot.

Eliot still didn't quite stop the grunt of pain as he settled in a chair, foot out in front of him.

"Add crutches to the list," Nate muttered to Parker in an undertone.

"I'm not deaf," Eliot barked. "I'm injured. And you don't have to pretend like I might argue with you, either. I know when I need help, all right?" As much as it galled him to admit it. "Now would someone get me a shirt? It's freezing in here."

Hardison grabbed his hoodie off the back of the desk chair and tossed it over. Eliot fought with it while Sophie disappeared into the bedroom, coming back out with a glass of water and a bottle of pills. The hoodie was huge but warm, and it zipped up the front. He couldn't get the zipper hooked without fumbling it so he just left it undone, overlapping the bottom hem. The open top half also allowed body heat to escape where the worst of the burns were across his chest. Then he took the bottle that Sophie offered -- actually, she offered a pill in the palm of her hand, but he took the bottle -- checked the label, shook out two, and swallowed them with water.

They were _still_ looking at him. Except Parker. She was playing with the hem of her cargo pants.

"All right," Eliot said, settling in and trying not to think about the fire creeping along his chest, shoulder, and hand. "Tell me what I need to know."

He focused through the conversation, snapping at people when they interrupted and confused the issue, boiling it down, finally, to a few main points.

"Let me get this straight. He's got cops on the payroll, he's connected -- we don't yet know how -- with gun runners, White Supremacists, and drug dealers... and you want to try and take down everything?"

No one quite nodded, but they all looked, in some way, affirmative.

"No," Eliot said.

"We can--" Nate began, and Hardison with, "After what he did--"

"To me?" Eliot cut in. They stopped. "That's how that sentence ends, right? After what he did _to me_ , you want to take him down. Hardison, if I went after everyone who ever did something like this to me--" he gestured at his chest, and then bit down on the rest. Too much. It was too much information. "Revenge isn't worth it. Trust me." He peered at Nate, next. Nate was throbbing in time to Eliot's heartbeat. He could feel it radiating heat through the burns, and pulsing in his toes. "And you, you know it'd take months with us at our best to take down a drug ring, an arms dealer, and dirty cops." He rubbed his eyes with his good hand, trying to clear them. A bruise lurked just under the skin. It had been less than twenty-four hours since they'd broken into Jamse's house. Maybe closer to twelve. He hadn't even had time to come up colorful from the fight with the security there.

The pain killers had taken effect, but it wasn't nearly enough. He knew from experience that nothing would be enough for days, maybe weeks. Burns were painful, regardless of medication. He ought to be grateful they were only second degree; anything worse and he'd either be in a lot more pain, or unable to feel in those spots at all.

"What if," Nate began slowly, "we don't worry about the drug rings and gun runners and hate groups. What if we just take _him_ down?"

"Someone else will step into his place," Parker pointed out.

"Sure, after a while. But that's the beauty of it, see. You three weren't out to take down all these organizations; you were out for him. We can still be out for him, still put a hole in all these things going on, without tackling them directly. They might eventually replace him... but it'll hurt, in the meantime."

Eliot looked up. "We need a bigger suite, if we're staying here, then."

"On it!" Hardison spun to his desk, fingers tapping away. "Oh, yeah, Jamse. You're gonna regret messing with one of ours."

Despite himself, Eliot gave a reluctant smile. Then he saw Sophie looking, and replaced it with a scowl.

**

Parker leaned against the windowsill, gazing out over the glittering cityscape. Somewhere out there, Jamse and his minions were looking for Eliot.

"Parker?" Hardison mumbled sleepily from the bed, rubbing one eye with the heel of his hand. "You a'ight?"

"Yeah, fine," Parker said with a faint smile. "You know me. Just don't sleep a lot."

Hardison looked at her, more awake now, and pushed himself up to lean against the headboard.

They had gotten another suite, in a totally different hotel. Two suites, in fact. This apartment had two bedrooms, separated by a living area and kitchen. The other suite, next door, had only one. Parker had claimed the two-bedroom suite right away, knowing Eliot would be in one of the rooms. She wanted him nearby.

Hardison rubbed his eyes again, clearly waking up. The sheet pooled around his waist, and Parker tried to drum up some interest in the view. But she kept hearing a mumbled word, _"Rats,"_ and it sort of killed any enthusiasm for anything.

It was better than closing her eyes, though. When she closed her eyes, she heard whimpers and groans and chest-deep screams.

"Parker," Hardison said, bringing her back, "you all right? With everything that went down? You know we got him back. He's gonna be fine. Couple'a weeks, he'll be back to his usual cranky self, making those eggs with that creamy sauce over the top and bitching about 'distinctive sounds' or something."

Parker nodded wordlessly.

"You want to come back to bed?" He held an arm out, the offer clear now that he'd made it several times. He wasn't just suggesting she come back to bed, but that she come snuggle with him. Hardison seemed to think that snuggling would make all the problems go away, so Parker snuggled with him. Personally, it made her feel more like she couldn't escape if she had to, but it was worth it sometimes for the way Hardison would get all melty.

"No," she said at last. "I think I'll go make some tea." She pushed off the wall, gestured for him to stay when it looked like he was getting up, and kept walking. "You should sleep. You need a lot of sleep."

"Six hours a night ain't a lot," he grumbled, exasperated. But he laid back down and pulled the sheet up, smooshing his face into the pillow.

The living area was dark when she stepped out, closing the door softly behind her. Parker looked through the cupboards, found the tea, held it for a little while, and put it back. She was peering in the fridge for no reason other than to peer in the fridge when a door opened behind her.

Parker turned swiftly, but it was only Eliot standing in his own doorway. He wore the same hospital pants he'd worn all day, with Hardion's zip-up hoodie hanging open, exposing swathes of white bandage across his chest. He'd pulled the hood up, and his face was mostly in shadow, long hair tucked behind his ears. His good hand gripped a crutch Sophie had found earlier, injured foot held just off the ground. His other hand, the bandaged one, was hidden in the sleeves of Hardison's hoodie.

In the shadows he looked... mostly just like Eliot. She'd even seen him on crutches once or twice, bandaged here or there.

She stared at him. He looked elsewhere. Then he glanced at her, and she looked down at the marble counter top. "Did I wake you?" she asked.

"No." His voice was still rough. It reminded her of screaming. "I just... I was awake. Hardison...?"

"Sleeping." She braced herself, looked up, looked down again. "Nate says you're supposed to rest."

"Yeah, well... How did they get here so fast?"

"They were in Europe, too. Caught flights."

He nodded. She could see it out of the corner of her eye. "What were you making?" he asked.

"What?" She looked up.

He gestured at the open refrigerator. "What were you making? There's not much in there."

"Oh." She turned, peered at the contents. Pizza and a McDonald's bag, Sophie's fancy take-out container, some groceries that Nate had bought all with labels written in French, a whole shelf of orange soda and a row of protein and juice smoothies for Eliot. He couldn't chew. Even swallowing made him glower. "Nothing. You want something?"

When he didn't answer, she turned to look. He'd just finished shaking his head.

"Eliot--" She took a step around the counter, stopped when she was a little bit closer, and tried to organize her thoughts. He was looking at her again. She didn't look away this time. "We're the ones who do things the others can't do," she said, repeating to him what he'd said to her months before. "So what happened... it's okay, right?"

Eliot laughed, but he didn't sound happy. "Parker, what happened-- No one is meant to do that. Or-- or deal with that."

Parker frowned, looking down and scratching at an imperfection in the counter. "But we're different than them. It should be okay. Easier. Because we're... we're us." She looked up again, just her eyes, hiding behind the tilt of her head.

Eliot looked weary. "It doesn't really matter how different we are," he said. "Something like that changes you. That's normal. But-- but you don't have to let it-- _change_ you."

Parker shook her head, uncomprehending.

Exhausted and clearly hurting, Eliot crutched slowly to the couch and sat down with a grimace. The hood fell back, showing swollen cheeks and a blackening eye.

Only twenty-four hours ago, they'd been preparing to break into Jamse's house. None of this had happened yet.

"Sit down," Eliot said crankily. "You're making me nervous."

Parker hesitated, then went around the coffee table and perched on the couch next to Eliot. They both stared at the table.

"What's wrong?" Eliot asked.

The words came, forming before she realized what she was going to say. "I keep hearing--" Eliot. She glanced at him, wondering if she should shut up now. "I thought when we got you back, it would be all right."

Eliot didn't say anything. She wondered if she'd said something wrong. Or to the wrong person. There were too many variables; she couldn't keep track of them all.

"Sometimes keeping a radio on helps," he said quietly. "With, y'know. Hearing things. Things you don't want to hear or remember. I try not to think about it, but that doesn't work. But you should-- you should--" He closed his eyes. Spoke tightly. "Talk to someone. If you can."

"You shouldn't have gotten caught like that," Parker said, anger rushing through her. "You shouldn't have sent me on. We could have left together. We could have held them off together, or--"

"I didn't want to see them doing this to you." Eliot's words were quiet, but intense. He glared at the floor. "I couldn't watch that."

"But _I_ did," Parker whispered back. "I had to watch them doing it to you because you made me leave. I mean-- not watched, but--"

"I know."

She blinked rapidly. Her vision blurred. She blinked again. "You didn't give me that choice. We should have stayed together."

"I'm sorry."

She sniffed. Rubbed her nose with the back of her hand. "Don't do it again."

He didn't say anything. It wasn't a promise he could keep, she knew that. His job was to take people out and keep them safe. He couldn't promise not to. Parker flung herself toward him, ignoring the way he jumped, aiming low so she didn't hit his bandages, wrapping her arms around his waist and rubbing her face dry on Hardison's hoodie.

Eliot didn't smell like cookies and blade oil. He smelled like medicine and dirt and blood and Hardison. Parker kicked her feet up on the couch, laid her head on his thigh, readjusted her arms more comfortably, and settled. After a minute, she felt his good hand come down and rest, hesitantly, on her shoulder.

"I'm glad you're back," she whispered.

"Yeah," Eliot said slowly. "Me too."

With one ear against his leg and one listening to him breathe, knowing he was _right there_ and not trapped and being hurt somewhere, Parker realized she really was tired. Eliot wasn't the most comfortable pillow, but no one could steal him while she was on him.

She drifted into sleep.

**

Eliot couldn't sleep. As exhausted as he was, every time he closed his eyes or -- God forbid -- started to drift off, old nightmares combined with new. He watched TV instead, infomercials with subtitles in English, the sound on mute so he didn't wake anyone.

His leg was getting pins and needles from the weight of Parker's head, and he couldn't wiggle his toes to wake it back up because it was his injured foot. She also snored. And drooled. And his bad hand was beginning to burn under the bandages. He needed more cream; that would help. Fat chance he'd get it without waking her up, though.

She'd had to come to _him_ for reassurance. Of all the people around at the moment, _him._ He wasn't exactly in the best shape himself. He'd burned out of emotional strength some time ago. The conversation had sapped him further. And what did he tell her? _Talk to someone_? Good advice, sure, but that meant she'd be talking to someone about what she'd heard _from him_ over the earbud, and he didn't want the whole team thinking about it. Knowing what had happened. Hearing from Parker, "Then he screamed and gasped and screamed some more." He didn't want them to see _tortured_ or _victim_ or _broken_ every time they looked at him, pity heavy in their eyes. It was bad enough now.

It made his skin crawl.

The bedroom door opened. Hardison glanced over the tableau Eliot and Parker made. Eliot lifted his hands placatingly, shrugging and shaking his head. "Look, man, I know whatever you two have going is new and all, and I didn't--"

Hardison gave a little smile and head shake. "It's cool. She's..." his gaze drifted over her, and he looked both amused and befuddled. "Parker." Then he looked back at Eliot.

Eliot didn't squirm. He locked his gaze onto the TV and _did not squirm_. He felt stripped bare, though, and wondered how much of the torture Hardison had heard. Some of the early stuff, for sure. What had Parker told them? Had he listened on his stupid little computer?

Hardison sat in the chair caty-corner, hands clasped between his knees. "You wanna talk about it?"

"Seriously, man? You want me to talk about my feelings?" Eliot shot him a dirty look. He didn't have the wherewithal for this. Every word felt like it was scraping him raw. He fixed his eyes on the TV.

"It's not good to bury it. It ain't healthy."

Eliot rolled his head to give Hardison the flattest stare he could. It wasn't much, but it did the trick. Hardison held up both hands, sitting back. "All right, man. But you know if you need to talk, I'm here for you."

Eliot didn't deign to respond.

Hardison stood, soft gray T-shirt and Loony Tunes pajama pants catching the glow from the screen. "Can I get you anything? Since you're pinned and all."

Eliot glanced down at Parker. She was dead to the world. "There's that burn salve on the dresser," he admitted reluctantly.

"Sure, man." Hardison disappeared into Eliot's room, rustled around a little, and came back with bandages and the tube.

It was awkward enough treating himself -- he didn't think the others had a clue how much cream he was using, just to keep the burn pain at bay -- but with Parker on his lap it was going to be doubly awkward.

Then Hardison knelt beside the couch, laying the supplies out in a neat little row along the end table. "Here, lemme see your hand." Hardison said it without even looking over, as if it were the most obvious and least notable thing in the world.

Eliot hesitated. Then he offered his bandaged hand, ignoring the tremor in his fingers. It was going to hurt. Taking the bandage off always hurt; sudden air on scorched flesh was breathtakingly painful, and it only got worse from there. It was one of the reasons he'd been doing it himself, in private. "Careful," he growled through clenched teeth, before Hardison had even touched anything.

Hardison paused, nodded silently, and picked up a pair of little scissors to cut away the tape.

Eliot didn't look. He focused on the television as the tremor crept up his arm, shivering in muscles. The bandage came away with little tugs, peeling off a layer of cream and bits of skin. He knew his palm was blistered and cracking, with little white splotches here and there. He couldn't feel the splotches, and though he knew that was a bad sign, he could only be grateful.

"All right, so, how...?"

He looked over. Hardison's hand was under his, supporting carefully. The tube of cream was in his other hand, cap off.

"Let go." Eliot moved his own hand so both of Hardison's were free. "Put enough cream on a gauze pad that when you put it on, the pad itself doesn't touch."

Hardison nodded and did exactly as he was told. Despite the cooling, numbing properties of the cream, it still hurt like a sonuvabitch when it was smeared on. Eliot clenched his teeth automatically, then hissed when the holes where his molars should have been flared up.

"Sorry, sorry," Hardison said quickly.

"Just get it done," Eliot ground out.

Hardison did.

"Now when you bandage," Eliot said, "do it so there's an air pocket between my skin and the gauze."

They didn't bother wrapping him up wrist to fingertips again. They'd just have to change it later, and Eliot wasn't sure he could deal with that.

The pain did, however, begin to subside as the medicated cream worked. He shivered, sweat cooling on his skin.

"How about the rest of you?" Hardison asked warily. "You've got burns on your chest and shoulders, too..."

"Good enough for now," Eliot grumbled.

"You want me to get you some pain killers?"

"I've taken the limit." Tylenol, not the narcotics they'd prescribed. He didn't need any more mind-altering drugs in his system.

Hardison frowned. "But... you're still hurting."

Eliot gave a humorless huff of a laugh, glancing at Hardison, who was still kneeling. "They help with the bruises and--" he gestured to his teeth, "--and my toes." As if against his will, Hardison glanced down at Eliot's bandaged foot and up again. "Nothing really helps with burns."

"But the cream--"

"Makes it bearable."

Hardison nodded, frowning, and set all the bandages and medication aside, taking the used ones into the kitchen and throwing them out. Then he walked back to the couch and bent over Parker, murmuring before he ever touched her. Eliot tried not to hear, but couldn't help it.

"Come on, Mama, it's just me. Just gonna shuffle you a little, here." Then he picked up her legs and slid underneath, and though she couldn't possibly have been comfortable with her knees on Hardison's lap and her head on Eliot's leg and the rest of her sagging into the couch, she only mumbled in her sleep and slept on. "First time she fell asleep on the couch and I tried to move her to the bed, thinking I was doing a favor, she woke up swinging. Girls sleeps with a _knife_ , most nights." Hardison gave a wry smile, propping his feet up on the coffee table and stretching his arms along the back of the couch. His hand rested just behind Eliot's good shoulder, not quite touching.

Eliot chuckled, tugging the hoodie closed over the part of his stomach that wasn't burned. Hardison fell quiet, seemingly content to watch subtitled infomercials.

It was hard to see demons and rats scuttling in the shadows, when Parker was on his leg and Hardison was keeping watch right next to him. He'd pulled the watch shift for a friend himself enough times to recognize it; Hardison showed no signs of napping.

Slowly, Eliot let his eyes close. He still saw things, but they kept farther away with so many others around. Turned out they weren't enough to keep him awake.

**************

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	5. Chapter 5

Nate paused just outside the door to the other three's suite, keycard at the ready. He could hear an argument taking place within, the same kind they kept up all the time at home. He cocked one eyebrow at Sophie, who gave a wan smile.

It had been a long night for both of them. He didn't know how much make-up Sophie'd applied to make it look like she hadn't spent half the night crying, but it worked wonders. Almost made him willing to try it, too.

He slid the card and opened the door.  
  
"--said you were tired of smoothies already!"

"I didn't mean you should blend the pizza! This is disgusting, Hardison!"

Hardison stood in the kitchen, hands spread as if laying out the perfect argument. His tone was utterly reasonable, explaining the obvious but misunderstood to a child. "It's just crumbs. Crumbs aren't disgusting. They're tasty little pizza-flavored crumbs that you don't have to chew."

Eliot hobbled to the counter on his one crutch, holding a drinking glass filled with pink crumbs. "An important part of food is _texture_. This--" he waved the glass around, "--doesn't have pizza texture! It changes the whole experience!"

"We could put some water in it. Make it smoothie-texture," Parker suggested, sitting on a corner of the cabinet and eating a bowl of Lucky Charms. Half of the box looked like it had been emptied around her, little marshmallow figures littering the floor. The toy sat nearby, torn out of its plastic wrapping. She grinned briefly, apparently tickled at her own thought process, and said, "Pizza smoothies."

"That wouldn't help," Eliot snapped, setting the glass down with a bang and hobbling toward the fridge.

"Here, let me." Sophie stepped across Nate and opened the refrigerator. "Which flavor?"

"Pick one," Eliot said, shooting a filthy look at Hardison.

Sophie plucked one of the cream-colored protein drinks out, opened it, and handed it to him. Eliot swigged, crutching away.

Hardison leaned toward them. "Someone is a little grumpy when he doesn't get his beauty sleep."

"I know!" Parker said, looking up suddenly. Her gaze locked onto Eliot. "Maybe you should cry!"

He choked on his drink. "What?"

"Cry! It works in all the movies. Someone gets tortured, then they have a good cry, and then it's all better!"

"I don't need to _cry_ , Parker, for God's sake!"

Nate smothered the sudden impulse to laugh. Maybe things weren't all right -- clearly something had happened that made Parker think Eliot wasn't all right -- but at least they were holding up.

"Sure you do!" Parker said cheerfully. "Go ahead, think of something sad. Like sad little kittens in a box. Or taxes."

Eliot stared at her. "Taxes?"

"Taxes make me sad." She took another bite of cereal, still watching Eliot.

"You don't pay taxes!" Eliot looked like he was about to start vibrating.

"Well, duh." Parker laughed and rolled her eyes. "Because that would make me sad."

Sophie tucked her hand in Nate's elbow, squeezing. Her eyes sparkled.

Turning his smile into words, Nate took her cue and stepped forward. "Okay, uh, guys? Can we talk about the mark?"

Hardison picked up a remote, pointing it at the TV as he came around the counter. The TV flashed to life, hooked into Hardison's computer. "Andre Jamse. He's sixty-two, two children. His daughter, Famke, is married to a Colombian arms dealer. His son died fifteen years ago in a bombing by insurgents while traveling through the Middle East. It was shortly thereafter that Jamse started funneling money toward the White Supremacist group, 'cause nothin' says world peace like hate. This is important, though, 'cause those dirty cops he's working with? They're part of this group.

"Anyway, guess he came to terms with _some_ people of color, though, 'cause his daughter married Enrique Santiago, who he's secretly in business with, laundering money through the guns." Emails flashed across the screen, to and from father and daughter.

"I thought Jamse was buying guns?" Nate asked, starting the coffee maker.

"I thought so too, but they're mostly laundering. Nah, he _buys_ drugs from the local drug dealer, paying in guns about half the time, and gives the drugs to his neoNazis. Only now," another screen came up, "he's in deals with a big pharmaceutical company."3.

 

"Pharmaceutical companies don't deal in fun drugs," Nate said, gaze riveted to the screen.

"They do deal in--" Hardison stuttered, glanced at Eliot, and continued, "--drugs to make people talk. From what I can tell, they're working with armies and mercenaries, and not the fluffy bunny UN kind of armies."

A whispered conversation caught Nate's ear, and he glanced toward Eliot and Parker, both now sitting on the couch. Parker nudged the glass of pizza crumbs over, and Eliot pushed it away. She nudged it again, and Eliot pushed it away.

"I'm not eating them, Parker," Eliot hissed, and looked like he would have moved somewhere else, but then glanced at his crutch and settled.

Parker nudged the glass closer.

"Speaking of which," Hardison continued, "the hospital got Eliot's drug test results in. Eliot, you mind...?"

Eliot grunted.

A chemical list popped onto the screen. "I'm thinking this is what they're marketing. It's a fun little twist on the usual truth serum drugs -- mostly sodium thiopental to lower inhibitions, but a nasty side-dose of something new. It looks a bit like a monster cross-over between LSD, with a significantly shorter half-life, and GHB, in that it creates higher levels of sensation. Like the drug version of Godzilla and Mothra's love child, you know what I mean?"

"They're creating nasty trips and hyper-sensation as a torture device," Eliot growled, pushing the glass away.

Parker looked put out. Then she looked at Eliot. "Is that what they did to you? That's why you were making--"

Nate stepped forward, talking a little more loudly than he needed to in order to cut Parker off. "So this isn't as bad as we thought. We take him down, he stops laundering money and trading guns for drugs, the pharmaceutical deal falls through -- this might be simple. And his daughter. She's the key."

"She doesn't step out of Colombia, probably due to the number of people who'd like to use her against her husband," Hardison said, bringing up a photo of a beautiful young woman with curves that the best surgeons were no doubt proud of.

"We don't need her here, though," Nate said. "We just need her name. Yeah." He turned the problem over in his mind, nodding. "Yeah. Hardison, start bringing up everything you can about the daughter. Sophie, you have a way into the gala tonight?"

She looked almost offended, and he wondered if he was going to pay for that later. "Of course."

"Good. All right, you guys. Let's go steal a daughter."

**

Sophie's lips twitched upward as she watched Eliot and Hardison out of the corner of her eye. Eliot was eating the pizza crumbs, while Hardison said, "See, brah? It's good, right?"

"Yeah, okay," Eliot said thoughtfully. "It's not bad. Needs, uh..." He shook some more into his mouth. "Parmesan, maybe. Make it cheesier but you could still warm it without the Parmesan melting, long as you didn't make it too hot. Might be able to keep that crumb texture but make it more pizza-like..."

Parker's voice to Sophie's right, just behind her shoulder, nearly made her leap out of her skin. "Sophie."

"Parker!" She twisted to look, heart pounding in her chest. "Don't do that!"

Parker didn't acknowledge it. "I'm worried about Eliot. I think he needs to cry. How do we make him cry?"

Sophie looked around for help, but she couldn't exactly rely on Eliot, Hardison was too close to him, and when she glanced at Nate he made himself _very_ busy looking over notes. That cheat. "Parker," Sophie said warily, "people handle trauma in different ways. Not everyone cries."

"But that's what they do on TV! Maybe if I punched him really hard--"

" _Don't_ punch Eliot!" Sophie said hurriedly.

"No, you're right. He's taken worse. That wouldn't make him cry." Parker looked at him thoughtfully.

He was sniffing the hoodie he wore, nose wrinkled. "God, what do you _do_ in this, Hardison? Don't answer that."

"I think it's you, man. When was the last time you showered?"

"I can't _shower_ with all these bandages!"

"Maybe a sponge bath..."

Eliot said warningly, with a dark look from under his eyebrows, "You'd better be talking about hiring some cute nurse..."

Sophie tore her gaze away. "Maybe Eliot just needs to... talk!"

"Talk?" Parker asked dubiously.

"Yes! Talk!" In fact, the more Sophie thought about it, the more she was sure. "Society teaches men to be strong and silent, but talk therapy has been found to be helpful for everyone. You know, they're doing drama therapy now with brilliant success--"

"Hardison?" Nate asked. "Do we have Jamse's financials?"

"Sort of." Hardison looked annoyed at his answer. "We got what Eliot pulled off his computer, but if you want access to his accounts we don't have that. If he hasn't changed his passwords by now, he's a fool."

"And he's not that," Eliot muttered.

"But," Hardison continued, "I have all his old passwords. I might be able to put together an algorithm to figure out what passwords he's likely to change them to..."

"Do it just in case. I think all we need is to know how much money he has," Nate said, and went back to his papers.

Hardison headed back to the computers, and Sophie gave Parker a reassuring smile. Eliot crutched into his room, moving slowly. "I'll talk to him," she murmured to Parker, and followed him.

The door was partly open. She knocked anyway, peering through the crack just in time to see Eliot yank the hoodie back up over one bare shoulder. "Come in," he called, reaching for a pill bottle on the dresser.

Sophie pushed the door open, stepped through, and closed it behind her. He glanced at her in the mirror, shaking out a horse-sized tablet and setting it to one side before reaching for another orange bottle. His crutch leaned against the dresser next to him, his weight balanced on his good foot. "Can I help you, Sophie?"

She braced herself, smiled, and went farther into the room. "I thought maybe I could help you."

He shook out two more capsules, red and blue, and tossed all three into his mouth before swigging back bottled smoothie. His reflected gaze remained steady on her as he capped it and set it down. "I suppose I could use some clothes. These are gonna get rank in another day. No one thought to grab my stuff from my hotel?"

Sophie gestured uncertainly. "We didn't know where you were staying, and finding you seemed more urgent. It'll have been reclaimed, now. Is it important?"

Eliot paused, thinking, then shook his head. "The important stuff was with Hardison and Parker." He hooked a finger at one chair, where a backpack slouched in the corner.

"I can get you some new clothes, though. We don't want you rank." She mimicked his accent with a teasing smile on the last word, relieved when he gave a brief chuckle. This was good. Chuckling was good. It meant he wasn't about to throw her out. Talking was even better. She moved a little farther into the room, wishing she could view him as a mark. It'd make manipulating him into what she wanted him to do easier.

He watched her. "Is there something you needed, Sophie?"

"I needed to make sure you're all right."

He looked annoyed. "I'm all right."

A different tack, then. "You know," she said brightly, sitting on the bed, "I've been thinking about teaching drama. Techniques for really getting into character, that sort of thing. To--" She opened her hands, grasping for the right words, "--to identify with a character more fully, to access those feelings they'd need to perform. Maybe you could help me--"

"I'm not an actor." He said it flatly, shutting down that avenue of discussion.

Sophie smiled and dodged his roadblock. "No, but that's the beauty of it. If I can teach you, then I can teach anyone!"

"Sophie--"

"We could just _try_ it, and if you don't like it--"

" _Sophie_." He glared at her in the mirror. "Stop conning me. I'm not gonna spill my guts and blubber about getting hurt just because you frame it as an acting exercise." He turned awkwardly, injured foot swinging out. "Was there anything else you wanted?"

She shook her head. "We're just all worried about you, Eliot."

"Well, stop worrying." He grabbed the crutch, fitting it under his arm and coming nearer the bed. "If you have to worry about someone, worry about Parker. She's the one who had to--" he stopped suddenly, a muscle in his jaw flexing -- and then he winced and relaxed. "Look, if you don't mind, I'd like to get some sleep."

"Oh," Sophie said, then realized she was on his bed, in his way, and hopped up quickly. "Oh! Sorry. Yes, sleep is probably good. And if you need anything--"

"I know, you're all ears." He lowered himself onto the bed with a cringe, set the crutch aside, and looked at her pointedly.

"Right." Sophie smiled awkwardly and fled the room.

**

Parker and Sophie had both left some time before, each to start work on their own parts of the job. Nate hung over the kitchen counter, pages of note paper spread out around him. "Hardison," he asked thoughtfully, "how do your earbuds work?"

Hardison stopped tapping. Nate turned to look at him, and Hardison twisted back, giving Nate a look as if he didn't know where to begin. "They're comms," he said finally.

"Yeah, I know that. But you designed them. How do they work?" He left the paper and strolled toward Hardison, peering at the half-dozen programs all layered over each other on the computer screen.

"Well..." Hardison frowned, and Nate bet he was figuring out how to dumb-down the explanation. "The audios comes into the computer, and my program sorts it by vocal intensity for priority, softens the noise so anyone having a conversation can focus, filters for key background words--"

"So... do you keep files? I mean, voice files."

"Oh." Hardison sat back and shook his head. "Nah. It'd eat up too much space."

"But it was on there. At some point." Nate watched him closely, picking up nuances. Hardison was confused, but Nate was used to the people around him being confused.

"Sure, I guess, long enough for the program to alter the feed and send it out."

Nate leaned against the desk, his full attention on Hardison, now. "When I delete a file off my computer, it's not really gone until it's been over-written. Right?"

Hardison nodded. "Unless you have a software scrubber--"

Nate held up his hand. "Would the audio files still be on there somewhere, then?"

Hardison considered it. He picked up his orange soda but didn't drink, just spun the bottle between his hands. "I suppose. We haven't used the comms since we picked Eliot up. It wouldn't have been over-written..." Dark, expressive eyes flickered up to Nate. Nate always thought Sophie was one foot in someone else's shoes, and figured it was because she was a con-artist. None of the rest were like that: they could fake it, sure, but if they weren't thinking about it they wore their emotions just right out there on their faces. "If you're thinking what I think you're thinking, you need to talk to Eliot."

Nate nodded, spinning toward the door. "That's my next stop. Start doing whatever you need to do to get the audio, though. He'll say yes."

"He's sleeping," Hardison said as Nate approached the bedroom door.

Nate snorted. "He's resting. Do you really think _Eliot_ would sleep through all our commotion?" He didn't wait for an answer from Hardison, just rapped lightly on the wood -- in case Eliot was sleeping.

"What?"

Not sleeping, then. He glanced at Hardison, shooting him a "See?" look, and opened the door.

""What" doesn't mean "come in,"" Eliot snapped, fumbling a bandage back over his burned shoulder. There was a pile of them on the bed beside him, a half-empty tube of cream on the nightstand.

"Ah... sorry," Nate said.

Eliot glared, winced as he grabbed Hardison's hoodie and began to awkwardly drag it on. "You're in now. What did you want?"

Nate averted his eyes, trying to give Eliot some privacy. Talking to him had seemed easier when the Eliot in his head wasn't so... "banged up" came to mind, but didn't really cover the extent of it. "Ah..."

"Nate, so help me, if you ask me if I want to talk about my feelings or if I'm fine..."

With one hand lifted and his face tipped away, Nate said, "Oh, no. I believe you're fine. I believe you'll handle yourself in whatever way you see fit." He smiled up at Eliot, closed the door, and caught up the chair from the writing desk. "You look like hell, by the way."

The muscles around Eliot's eyes relaxed. "Yeah, thanks."

Eliot did, too. The bandages hid the worst of it, but there were still bruises, and he never bothered zipping the hoodie up all the way. Nate wasn't sure why, but figured it had to do with the burns across his chest.

Nate shrugged it off and rallied his thoughts. He needed everything focused for this con. "I think we can take down the pharmaceutical company."

And just like that, he had Eliot's full attention.

**

It wasn't that he was eavesdropping, exactly, because his Nana would have tanned his hide for that. But if he happened to need to stretch his legs, and the only good walking path crossed Eliot's door, and he happened to hear words drifting through, that was only coincidence.

Mostly it was low murmurs. And then Eliot's intensity. "--can't just mess with peoples' lives, Nate!"

Whatever Nate said was lost in wood.

"-- _conning_ me--" came through next, but Hardison couldn't make out the words before or after. More quiet talking. Eliot subsided. Then footsteps.

Hardison booked it back to his computer, snatching up a bottle of soda and twisting the lid off as Eliot's door opened. He did his best to look like he'd been here all along, yessir.

Nate walked out. "What have you got for me, Hardison?"

"Uh, about forty-five minutes of Eliot's comm. Some of that will be the ambulance, and hopefully they turned the earbud off when they found it."

"You don't have it?" Nate looked at him sharply.

Somehow, it always made Hardison feel like he'd forgotten something important, like zipping up his fly, when Nate did that. "We didn't exactly have time for me to go through all the hospital trash cans, no. Whoever found it when they were examining Eliot has it."

Nate gestured sharply, annoyed. "All right, go on."

"Go on, what? We've got forty-five minutes, and I got no idea what's on it."

Nate scowled. "So play the beginning, and we'll know."

Hardison glanced toward the bedroom door, still partially open.

"I cleared it with Eliot. Better to do it now, though, before everyone else arrives."

Hardison didn't point out that Parker had already heard it, so "everyone else" was mostly them. Instead, he glanced at the door.

It slammed closed.

"Right," Hardison muttered. "Because this isn't weird." With a held breath -- he wasn't sure he wanted to hear this, anyway -- he clicked "play."

Static. Parker's voice: "-- _n hour ago. We'll be there in another hour. You just have to last a little longer._ "

And then Eliot, words labored and slow. " _Don't have... that long._ "

Hardison stopped it, unbelievably relieved there hadn't been any screaming. "So from there forward."

"Can you filter out Parker's voice? Filter out everything but Eliot and the men who held him?"

"Sure," Hardison said. "Are you sure Eliot's--"

"He's fine with it." Nate clapped Hardison on the shoulder, then picked up his coat and headed for the door. "I'm going to find Sophie. Brief her on the gala tonight. Jamse is still planning on going?"

Hardison pulled up the logs from the rental agency Jamse used. "Still has a car set to pick him up and drop him off. I suppose he could be going somewhere else, but it seems unlikely."

Nate nodded. "Good. And the emails are in the hotel printer?"

"'Course." That was child's play.

"All right. Get those audios cleaned up as quick as you can." He pulled on his coat and headed for the door.

Hardison looked at the computer with not a little dread. "Sure thing, boss," he muttered.

**


	6. Chapter 6

He'd tried to sleep. Much as he hated convalescing, he'd done it enough times to know that rest and sleep were important.

The more he tried to rest, the more he thought about Nate's plan. About Hardison out there listening to the comm feeds, isolating Eliot and his captors.

The more he tried to sleep, the more he saw shadows where shadows didn't belong, felt the weight of rats along his legs.

The more he tried to ignore it all, the more his burns hurt. His jaw ached. Those implants had been expensive too, damn it.

  
He tossed even the sheet off, unable to bear the minimal heat on his chest, and shivered in the bed. His hand throbbed. No matter where he rested it, heat seemed to build until it was impossible to think about anything except that. And the pillow, it only rubbed on his shoulder burns, already angry and inflamed from wearing the hoodie.

He tried meditating with marginally more success. He considered taking an oxycodone in the vain hope it'd knock out some of the burn pain, but it was a narcotics and the thought of taking something else that would alter his mind, especially after what Hardison had said about the drugs they'd pumped him full of, was repulsive. He'd survived on massive amounts of Tylenol so far. He left the oxycodone bottle alone.

Eventually, he decided it was time to wash. He stank, anyway, and there were still traces of blood under his fingernails, along the bottom of his foot, and now greasy melted cream along the edges of the burns. He hadn't shaved in a few days, and while it wasn't generally something he was meticulous about, the dried sweat in his three-day growth was starting to itch. He gathered his things -- not much more than bandages, cream, and his crutch -- stuffed the bandages and cream in the pockets of Hardison's hoodie, and braced himself to walk out into the main room.

He paused just at the door, listening. He'd heard voices over the last few hours. One high enough to be only Sophie's, lilting with her accent. One too rapid-fire to be anyone but Nate. Now, though, it was silent out there, with only the occasional tick of computer keys to tell him it was occupied at all. He balanced his crutch, let go, turned the knob and pulled so the door would swing open, then re-gripped his crutch and hobbled out to the main room.

Hardison looked up from his computer, pulling off a pair of giant headphones. Eliot wondered what was playing on them. No one else was in the room.

"Where is everyone?"

Hardison turned back to the computer, pulling up a map with three red dots. "Sophie and Parker are at the pharmaceutical company doin' their thing, Nate's next door being a tyrant on the comms. Yeah, you heard me."

Eliot blinked, then realized Hardison must have been wearing one.

"You want in?" Hardison picked up one of the little earbuds, offering it.

Eliot shook his head. "Nah, man. Not unless you've found a way to make 'em water proof." He gestured to the bathroom with his chin.

"Ah, yeah, I gotcha. Here--" He swung around, unfolding from his chair and snagging an expensive-looking French bag off the floor. "--Sophie picked you up some clean clothes." Without being asked, he carried the bag into the bathroom and set it down.

"Thanks."

"No problem, girl. You go get yourself prettied up. Wash your hair and all. You need a hair dryer or flat iron or something?" He grinned and gave Eliot a wide berth.

"Hardison..." Eliot said warningly, but his heart wasn't really in the threat, and when Hardison laughed he felt the corners of his lips twitch upward of their own accord.

The main problem with his washing plan, he discovered almost right away, was that he couldn't get in the shower with all his bandages -- even tepid water would have made the burns scream, anyway -- and it hurt to twist when he washed with a soapy rag. It hurt to stretch and reach the bits of unburned skin. It hurt like hell when the rag skimmed too close to an injury. He couldn't grit his teeth, but he did bear through it. He gave up on washing his hair in the sink. Reaching up to scrub just wasn't going to be possible.

If he hadn't been trembling so much by the time he was done, he'd have even felt human.

He stared at himself in the bathroom mirror, wondering if he could manage a shave. Wondering, at this point, how he was going to get through bandaging again. He sat down on the toilet to rest. He kept shaking, body worn with pain and exhaustion. Maybe more pain meds were a good idea, after all.

Jesus. He couldn't finish this alone.

He listened intently, but still only heard the clackity-clack of surprisingly agile fingers on a keyboard. He took a breath and bellowed. "Hardison!"

An instant later, Hardison's voice was just outside the door. "Eliot? I gotta come to the rescue in there? 'Cause I know you're hurt and all, but I'm pretty sure if I came in prematurely you could still kick my ass."

Eliot smiled briefly. "Yeah, I could. Get in here."

The door opened a crack, and Hardison peered around.

"Any pretty nurses out there?" Eliot asked, trying not to notice how Hardison's eyes caught on his angry, blistered skin. Trying even harder not to think about what Hardison had been listening to for the past few hours.

"I'm not sure I'd call myself pretty, but I have been assured I look good in garters."

Eliot couldn't decide if he was entirely kidding or not. He did do all that online roleplaying crap...

Hardison's grin fell away, replace by amused incredulousness. "It's a joke, Eliot. Did you really think I--" He stopped, shook his head, and re-started. "Do you need help?"

"Yeah," Eliot said darkly, angry at the way his own body wouldn't hold up as much as he needed it to. "I do."

Hardison eased into the room, closing the door behind him and taking out his earbud. Eliot must have looked at him askance, because he shrugged and said, "The computer'll let me know if any key emergency words are said, and I didn't figure the whole team needed to be in on this."

Eliot wished he wasn't quite so relieved. "I just need help bandaging up."

Hardison looked at him critically. "You want your hair washed?"

"Why, are we going to bandage my head?" Eliot snapped, sarcastic.

Hardison shrugged. "When I broke my arm and couldn't shower so easy, Nana washed my hair for me a couple'a times. I always felt better after. I don't figure you can lift your arms as well as I could then, so..."

The honesty unnerved him. Talking about his hair made his scalp itch. "I can wash my own hair," he muttered unhappily. "I've got a functional arm." Never mind that lifting it pulled at the burns on his chest, and that he was already so shaky that standing, bent over the sink, while his chest screamed at him and his muscles failed just seemed like a bad idea.

"Yeah, well I got two functional arms. Look, man, if you don't want me to that's fine, but I thought I'd offer." Hardison folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the counter.

"I guess if even you've noticed a smell, it's probably the least I can do," Eliot said gruffly.

Hardison nodded once. "That's the spirit."

Eliot levered himself to his feet while Hardison turned on the sink tap, gathering tiny bottles of shampoo and conditioner out of the bathtub.

"Your choices are," Hardison uncapped the tiny bottle and sniffed, "girly flower shampoo or Parker's Axe shampoo."

Eliot glanced at the black bottle. "Why does Parker have guys' shampoo?"

"Well, first off," Hardison said reasonably, "because she's Parker and Parker does what Parker wants. Second off, because this is called Primed and the conditioner is called Lure and every time she sees them she giggles. I don't know why she giggles, so don't ask me. She's got boxes of this stuff." His face softened and he laughed gently. "That girl is crazy." But it was said as an endearment.

The affection on Hardison's face loosened something in Eliot's chest. He nodded toward the black bottle. "Think she'd mind if I used it? I'd rather not smell like flowers all day."

"I doubt she'll notice." Hardison put the little bottles of shampoo and conditioner back, uncapping the big one and setting it on the sink. "All right, you tell me when you're getting tired, and if we ain't done I'll just wrap a towel around the mess and you can sit for a while."

Hardison's matter-of-fact tone was like a balm. It wasn't, "Poor Eliot, you can't make it through," or "Poor Eliot, I'm horrified because I've been listening to torture tapes and now I'm seeing the evidence and don't know how to treat you" -- which was an even bigger concern. Instead, it was an acknowledgment that he wasn't 100%, and they'd work with that. Eliot nodded instead of bristling, leaning one hip against the sink so he could keep his weight off his foot, and bending over.

It was a little weird to have someone else wash his hair for him. That hadn't happened since--

Well, hell, he didn't know if it had ever happened.

But Hardison didn't seem to think it was weird. He chattered on about some game that Eliot was ashamed to admit he was beginning to understand, running water over Eliot's head, working in shampoo, and rinsing it out all while being careful not to touch the burns across Eliot's shoulder with hand, hair, or soap.

"And you should have _seen_ the look on the DM's face when we just refused to go find the locket. It was hilarious! Okay, up."

Eliot straightened up slowly and carefully, his hair all gathered into a towel Hardison held. He braced on the sink with his good hand, his lower back twinging from being bent over so long, and Hardison began to wring the water out carefully.

Eliot chuckled at the end of the story, more amused at Hardison's excitement then anything else, but couldn't help pointing out, "You know grenades don't really work like that, right?"

Hardison paused. "See, man," he said finally, "this is why I gotta recruit you for my next campaign. We'd wipe the floor with them. My tech savvy and your weapons know-how, there'd be no stopping us. I could make you a... a barbarian orc, maybe? That sound fun?"

Eliot snorted, then winced when it pulled at his gums. "I don't think so."

"Can't blame a guy for trying. Look, you have a seat and let me check on the others, a'ight?"

Eliot nodded. He was shaky and lightheaded, and could probably use the sit-down anyway. In fact -- "Do they need you?" he called. "If they need--"

"Nah, nah. Parker and Sophie are doing their things. Looks like Parker already planted the bug, and Sophie's got Nate on her comm so if there's a problem he needs me for, he'll holler."

Eliot wasn't even entirely sure what was going on. Nate hadn't said anything about bugs in the pharmaceutical company. He felt suddenly awash, useless, and hurting.

Hardison came back in. He paused in the doorway with a frown, and then Eliot felt naked, too, even though he was wearing pajamas bottoms and this stupid towel on his head. He yanked the towel off with a scowl and tossed it in the bathtub.

"They really did this to you, huh." It wasn't a question. Hardison looked a little ill.

Eliot bristled. "I don't want to talk about it, Hardison," he snapped.

It shook Hardison out of his pensiveness, and he stepped into the bathroom. "I'm just thinking, maybe we should have gotten you to a hospital? I mean, one where you stayed for more than twenty minutes."

Eliot glared even more. "I hate hospitals. We've got all the meds they prescribed, anyway." Even if he wasn't taking the oxycodone.

Hardison hesitated, then nodded, obviously shaking off the solemnity. "Right, right. Sorry. Just, y'know, I'm used to you being all "grr" instead of hurt, and I forget how little you are." He grinned. It was the grin that told Eliot he was teasing again, trying to lighten things up.

Eliot glared at him anyway. "What do you mean, little? I'm average, all right? You're a freakin' giant."

"Yeah." Hardison chuckled, pleased. "I am. All right, shave or bandages first?"

He hadn't realized a shave was a possibility. He wouldn't want to get the bandages wet. "Shave," he said firmly.

**

Eliot was on the couch, half sitting and half prone, when Parker walked in with Sophie and Nate on her heels. The fact that Eliot roused instantly made her feel better. She made a beeline for the couch, stood over him with her hands on her hips, and examined him. "You look different." She leaned in. "And you smell _really good_."

"It's called a shower," he grumped. "And a shave."

She brightened, glancing at Hardison briefly. "Did you use Alec's straight razor? I love his straight razor. It's sexy."

Eliot was saying something, but she didn't pay attention to what. She walked over to Hardison instead, jumping as he stood and wrapping her legs around his waist. His hands were warm at the small of her back, the flex of his muscles alluring. She leaned in, touching noses.

"Hey, Mama," he said with a broad smile. "I love it when you plant bugs. You're amazing."

She could smell him from here, sweet orange soda and aftershave and shampoo.

"Uh, guys?" Nate interrupted.

"Eliot!" Sophie sounded hurt. "You're wearing those ratty old pants and hoodie, still? I bought you new clothes!"

Hardison laughed. Parker, with her legs around his waist, turned to look at Sophie and see what he was laughing about. She couldn't tell. A moment later, he said, "You got him red silk pajamas, Soph."

"I felt like a freakin' dandy," Eliot groused.

Sophie looked from one of them to the other, shocked. "I'll have you know those were the finest silk! Nate has a pair and--"

Nate cleared his throat loudly, stepping forward. "Okay, well then, back to work. Eliot, you're due for meds? Sophie, how'd the meeting go?"

Parker slid off Hardison, then bounced into Eliot's room to grab all the bottles off the dresser and bring them out, depositing them in Eliot's lap before plopping on the couch next to him. "Which ones?"

He held one finger up, listening to the conversation. Parker shrugged and began reading labels, taking out the appropriate pills. These were antibiotics, to be taken twice a day. This was a pain killer. This was for sleeping, but said only to take it at night. She remembered the morphine, but that was intravenous and Eliot didn't like needles. The memory hit her, and she stilled for a moment. Voice broken, hoarse, drugged. _"I hate nee'les,"_

She shook her head clear.

"--convinced them that he wants to open a fund for the new drug, and we're all going to meet tonight at the gala. They'll have the information for him there, which, of course, I'll present as their wanting him to join a new charity. You have to love those tax write-offs--"

Parker tuned Sophie out again, set the pills aside, capped the bottles, and got Eliot a smoothie from the kitchen. She presented him with pills in one hand and smoothie in the other, and he glanced over them briefly before swallowing them all and taking a drink.

That was good. He wasn't going to die from toe infections or anything, then. He'd be really embarrassed if they put _that_ on his tombstone. "Here lies Eliot, dead from a toe infection." Parker giggled softly then settled back, one foot propped up on the couch, and listened.

"Parker," Nate said, "you got the bug dropped?"

She snorted. "Easy as lying. When they open the new accounts, we'll see it."

"Already have, in fact," Hardison cut in. "They're open and waiting, earmarked for S1-25, the drug they gave Eliot."

"All right," Nate said, clapping his hands together and looking around. "Let's get Sophie to that gala."

**

"And you are?"

Nate smiled self-deprecatingly, ducking his head and waving his hands. "No no no," he said in French. "I'm just a friend. Just want you to know what kind of man you're in bed with, that's all." He rubbed his hands, one over the other, nervously. "The cause, you know, must stay pure."

They nodded, agreeing even if they didn't trust him. "We'll take a look," one of them said, hoisting the manilla envelope. "Thanks."

Nate bowed, hands lifted, eyes downcast. Then he turned and walked away, shuffling at first, brisk once he'd rounded the corner. "The package is home. How's Sophie doing?"

 _"You know Sophie. She's doin' her thing,"_ Hardison said over the comms.

Nate went quiet, listening as she spoke.

_"I'm so glad we could all come to an agreement on this. The money will be well spent, M. Jamse, Mme. LePont."_

Other voices: _"Yes, we look forward to continuing our business arrangements."_

_"I'll wire the money tonight."_

Nate nodded. So that was set. "Then I've got another meeting to get to," he said. "Sophie, we'll swing by and pick you up in an hour. Unless you need more time?"

_"No, no. No more champagne for me, thank you."_

Nate smiled. He loved listening to her work, even when he couldn't watch her. "Then I'll be there soon."

Parker pulled the car around, and he made her move over, sliding into the driver's seat.

**

"Scan the area," Eliot directed. "Look for an excessive number of cars, or anyone in clothes that don't match what everyone else is wearing."

 _"There aren't any people in the area,"_ Nate answered. The unspoken comment seemed to be, "How should I know what everyone else is wearing?"

Eliot scowled. "It's a poor area, Nate. Clothes will be ragged, big enough to hide a weapon. The guys you're meeting have more money; they'll be drug-chic, not worn out, clean. It's--" Eliot hesitated, words failing him. "It's a very distinctive look." He should have been there, not here, bandaged and out of commission.

 _"The money went through,"_ Sophie said quietly. _"Hardison?"_

"Got it. Nate, it's headed to your phone now." He put a USB drive in his computer, tapping and mousing.

 _"Easy, easy,"_ Nate said, in the nasally sort of voice he used so often for cons, now in French. _"We're on the same side, you and me. The enemy of my enemy, right?"_

The click of guns was obvious. Muscles tightened all down Eliot's spine. He should have been there. Parker was there, driving the getaway car, but it wasn't the same.

A new voice, purely French: _"How do I know? You said you had something for me."_

_"Sure, sure. Just gotta reach into my pocket here, don't get too excited..."_

"Nate's accessing the accounts," Hardison said, and Eliot knew it was for his benefit.

_"This here? This is, uh, this account is Jamse's, right? You know him."_

_"Sorry, I don't,"_ the new voice said.

_"Right, right. Well, this here -- you can look it up easily enough -- this is a drug company. This is for recreational uses. Pretty good deal, huh? This, S1-25, it's on public record, it's the new thing, right? LSD and GHB all in one. And with a pay-off like Jamse's given them..."_

Silence. Eliot forced himself to drink more smoothie (God, he was getting tired of those), to relax.

_"Interesting. Not that it matters to us... what's it matter to you?"_

Eliot could hear the smile in Nate's voice. _"I want in on the company. Can't get in while he's monopolizing, right?"_

_"Right. We'll look into it for you."_

Pleasantries, veiled threats, and Nate was walking away, calling Parker to meet him outside the warehouse doors.

Eliot listened until Nate was in the car and they were on the way to get Sophie. Then he took the earbud out, setting it carefully on the coffee table. "That's the drug dealers, then?"

"It didn't take 'em out," Hardison admitted with a regretful nod of his head, "but they ain't gonna like it that one of their clients has found a new supplier." Then he grinned. "And whatever Googling they do will only support what Nate said -- the mix does look like a fun time, and Jamse did pay _just_ for that, in a special account."

Eliot relaxed back. He'd been resting for half of the planning, missing the things that went wrong and had to be re-organized, but it seemed that the worst of it was over. He could get the details when it wasn't one a.m. "How soon before we head home?"

Hardison brought up a new window. "I can get us a train to England and Sophie's doctor, or a plane flight all the way home, both for tomorrow. Sophie said the pressure change would hurt fractured bones..."

"Home," Eliot said. He could deal with the pain. The cracks in his jaw were only minor, where the bone had let go of the screws.

Hardison didn't argue with him, just nodded. "Then we... are... booked." He swiveled to face Eliot, smiling like he expected praise for booking tickets. Hell, even Eliot could do that.

"I'm gonna hit the sack." He got his crutch, levered himself up, and considered the walk to his bed. Considered his dark room, silence except for ambient noise. Then he pushed himself into motion and started the trek.

*****************

Three weeks to plot, write, and edit. Leaving feedback... very much shorter. ;)


	7. Chapter 7

If Hardison had been sleeping, the hand to his face definitely would have woken him. Since he wasn't sleeping it didn't wake him, but it still hurt.

He picked Parker's hand up off his nose, gently pushing it to one side. It was still dark out; no light peeked around the blackout curtains in the room. The gang hadn't dispersed until nearly four a.m., and Hardison had been laying awake since.

Hardison checked the bedside clock.

Five fifteen.

He faced the ceiling and dreamed of dreams. He'd never been the best at keeping business hours, but that made sense; he didn't work a nine to five job. If he stayed up all night programing, it didn't matter. But this -- this laying in bed and wishing he were dead to the world -- this was new. He didn't like it.

He rolled over, back to Parker, and closed his eyes. He listened to her breathing, with the occasional snore. He listened to the traffic outside, eternal in city of this size. He listened to--  
  
Was that a whimper?

He looked toward the bedroom door. He'd already checked for the cause of the sound (Eliot, he knew, strapped to a chair, not Eliot hurting in the next room no matter what his mind told him) three times before convincing himself he was hearing things, but it was still damned alarming. He'd been resisting the urge to check for the last forty-five minutes. There was no one out there. Eliot's door was closed. He couldn't have heard a whimper -- or a plaintive call, or a caught breath, or a broken cry -- even if Eliot were making those noises.

Which he was not.

Hardison buried his head under the pillow, but that wasn't much better. It just gave the whimpers and calls and breaths and cries all the silence in which to ring.

It was like having a song stuck in his head, but this song was the tracks Nate had asked him to clean up so they could be planted. The sounds of Eliot being tortured. Damn Nate, anyway. Hardison wouldn't have heard them if it hadn't been for--

Another whimper scraped along his nerves.

But -- wait -- that one came from beside him. Hardison sat up, throwing his pillow off his face and hitting Parker's chest with it. It wasn't the most romantic way to rouse her, but he'd long since learned romance was nice in theory, but in reality distance was safe.

She sat bolt upright, gasping, blond hair flying around her face, sticking to her cheeks and temples.

"Easy, baby," he crooned, now that he was sure he wasn't going to be head-butted. "You were having a bad dream."

Making a face, Parker peeled her hair away from her lips. She swallowed, nose wrinkled, as if there were a nasty taste she couldn't get rid of. Then she blinked and looked at him, all big blue eyes and fair skin. "I was dreaming about Eliot."

Hardison started to reassure her, but the words that came out instead were, "Want to go check on him?"

Oh, Eliot was going to love this.

"Yeah." Parker shoved out of bed and to her feet, wearing shorts that barely covered her rump (and what a delicious little rump it was, too) and a spaghetti-string tank top.

"Hey." When she looked over, Hardison tossed her one of his big T-shirts. She looked damn good in everything, and the long legs vanishing past his hemline were alluring as all get out, but it was marginally better than Eliot seeing her nipples through the material of her thin tank. Lord, but she was going to be the death of him, and he was going to love every minute.

She pulled the shirt on as they walked to the door, Hardison grabbing another and pulling it on as well. Parker opened the door, and Hardison nearly ran into her when she stopped dead.

"You're supposed to be resting," she said accusingly. "Why are you up?"

Hardison looked over her head, placed a hand in the small of her back and encouraged her forward, and finally caught a glimpse of Eliot on the couch. Eliot's injured foot was propped up, the blue television light flickering over him. He looked surprised to see them.

"Why?" he asked. "I'm not allowed to be up?"

"No! You're supposed to be resting!" She stalked in, feline grace and just as feline prickliness.

Hardison cut in quickly. "Neither of us could sleep."

"Me neither," Eliot said. "There's... infomercials."

Which was so clearly an invitation, if not a request, that Hardison wandered farther into the room. "I like infomercials. Have you seen the one where the guy chops carrots right in the air with those knives?" He plopped down onto the couch next to Eliot, leaving a space for Parker on his other side if she so chose.

She was stuck on the outskirts, not quite sitting down, not quick leaving. Hardison ignored it; she'd figure out what she wanted eventually. It was usually best to give her the space to do so.

Eliot snorted. "Yeah. But it's a scam; you can do that with your fingers if you strike correctly."

"Seriously?" Now they'd interested Parker. She perched on the arm of the couch, forcing Eliot to straighten up or his head would have ended up on her chest. "Can you teach me?"

"Sure." Eliot shrugged, an aborted little movement with one shoulder. "When we get home, you bring the carrots and I'll show you how."

The noises that had been plaguing Hardison's thoughts faded. Sure, Eliot looked like hell -- in fact, like he'd been tortured -- but he was still here, still Eliot, and it'd be all right. In the meantime, Hardison could see both Eliot and Parker relaxing, and felt himself doing so, as well. He stretched his arms out along the top of the couch, ignoring the tickle of Eliot's hair, and tipped his head to see if Parker would come sit with him.

She saw the motion, but looked back at Eliot. At his shoulder, in fact, where the white bandages swathed skin. "Does it hurt?"

Eliot pulled away from her, edging into Hardison's space. "It does, and so help me, Parker, if you start poking me--"

"She's not gonna poke you," Hardison said with amusement. "Right, Mama?"

Parker looked like she'd just gotten away with something. Her words were oddly stilted. "Oh. No. Of course not." She stood and stepped over Eliot's legs, Hardison's knees, and flopped to the couch on his other side. "I would never do that."

Eliot had leaned back into the corner, glaring at her sidelong. "Except all the times you have."

She shrugged, snuggling up under Hardison's arm. She fit perfectly. "I was just testing, those times."

"Testing for _what_? Pain receptors?"

"Just... testing." She slumped against Hardison, practically boneless, tucking her legs up beside her and resting her head on his shoulder. He wrapped his arm around her, helping to stabilize in case she drifted off. Then he leaned, pressing his cheek into her hair. It smelled like Axe shampoo.

Without quite picking his head up, Hardison turned to regard Eliot. He'd slumped a little, too, no longer quite so alert as he'd been when they'd walked out. Couldn't sleep. Sure. Hardison bet all three of them had some variation on the same problem, and Eliot had it in spades. He moved just his hand, tapping the back of Eliot's head to get his attention. Eliot pulled away initially, then glanced over.

Hardison mouthed the words. "Can't sleep?"

Eliot did the same abbreviated shrug he'd done before.

Quietly, Hardison murmured, "Don't kill me but... you okay?"

Eliot didn't kill him. Didn't even look like he wanted to. His eyes dropped a little, as if he were thinking about the question. Then he nodded and shifted, tucking himself farther into the corner of the couch, propping one leg up. That one leg ended up foot on the couch and knee against Hardison's chest.

Hardison could just barely reach Eliot's head still, if he stretched, so he petted with a single finger. When Eliot looked up again he fist-bumped his own chest twice, then pointed to Eliot. Solidarity, man. He had Eliot's back.

The corner of Eliot's mouth quirked upward. He nodded once more.

**

Eliot leaned a little more on the kiosk to get his weight off his foot, and gave the attendant a sleepy smile. "I'm looking for--" he realized he'd forgotten and gave her a sheepish chuckle, fishing for the list in his pocket.

She chuckled back, just like he'd expected, and leaned a little closer to hear him. When he glanced up, she wasn't far away. He made eye contact and smiled again. "Here we go. Ah, sunflower seeds, water, mini Oreos, and orange soda." He looked from his list to her. "Do you have those things here?"

She smiled, showing off dimples, and answered in French that was much more natural than his own. "Of course. Wait here, I'll get them for you." She stepped out from behind the counter, plucking a bag of sunflower seeds off the rack and circling away to another set of shelves. "What'd you to do end up on crutches? Anything fun?" The smile she sent over her shoulder was practically sparkling.

He wasn't even in the mood to flirt, not really, but he just couldn't help appreciating the way she moved, the curves and softness and the bounce in her hair. He turned to rest his back against the cashier counter so he could face her as she walked. "Ah, I'd like to say it was something fun. Broke it on a scooter, though."

She laughed, like he'd meant her to.

"At home it's motorcycles, and that's never hurt me. Have you ever ridden a motorcycle?" He smiled, slow like molasses, and the words came out in a deep purr. "I'd be happy to take you." He hadn't _meant_ to purr. He really wasn't in a flirting mood. He just... couldn't help it.

She plucked out the orange soda from a case, still laughing. "What are you, American? Your accent is American. I don't think I'll be flying there any time soon."

"And with all these planes around." He shook his head mock-sadly.

"I'm sure someone like you will find another friend," she pointed out with wry amusement. "But just in case you don't..." She rang up his purchases, put them in a bag, then wrote her number on the back of the receipt. When she passed it across, she winked. "For when you find yourself in France again."

Eliot made a show of folding it carefully and tucking it into his pocket before he picked the bag up, holding it in the same hand he gripped the crutch.

With a final nod and a lazy smile, he turned and headed out of the kiosk, back to the main aisle. People rushed past, barely giving him room as they hauled little wheeled suitcases and the occasional screaming child along, trying to make their flights.

He moseyed, pausing to shift his grip on the bag/crutch, testing how much weight he could put on his foot. It was getting better.

When he got to the gate, Parker was gone. No one else was in sight, either, but they'd all decided to come at different times -- Nate and Sophie were on a different flight -- and he could hear Nate over the comm: _"Yes, yes, she works for us. Any help you can give her--"_ He set the bag of food down in one of the chairs, balancing his crutch against his side as he let go, arms flexed downward to keep the burns from hurting, and stretched. His spine popped in three different places.

When the man behind him spoke, in was in a familiar voice. One that Eliot had heard while fighting off waves of pain. "You really thought we'd just let you go?

The corner of Eliot's mouth twisted up. "'Course not." He whipped around, weight on his bad foot, ignoring the sudden blast of pain. He swung the crutch under and up to catch Knife in the chest. Knife staggered back, blocking the second man's way for just an instant. It was the instant Eliot needed. He planted his good hand on the row of chairs, vaulting over.

 _"Don't beat them too badly, Eliot,"_ Nate reminded him over the comms.

Eliot landed on the other side, good foot taking the brunt of his weight. They were already following him over; Knife leaping as he'd done, Apple racing around the end of the row. Nate's faith in his abilities was nice, but two-against-one-injured weren't great odds. "What," he snapped anyway, "you want me to just take the beating?"

Two voices: _"Yes!"_ and Sophie with exasperated reasonableness, _"You've taken worse."_

Then Parker, both over the comm and down the corridor, voice echoing strangely, _"They've got him!"_

Eliot went down at the first blow, angling himself so the worst of the burns were protected. So Apple and Knife couldn't snap his neck.

Hitting the floor, he kicked up with both feet, hard,striking Knife's thigh, muscle to bone. It slowed Knife down. Apple came around. Eliot rolled, half under the bench of chairs, almost wishing they'd bend down after him. Give him just a second at their faces before Parker got here--

"Get off!" she yelled, her voice falsely deep, grabbing for the attacker nearest her. Then a proper security officer came into view, catching the same guy in an arm-bar. Knife took off running, and Eliot saw Parker, trailed by two more security guys, take off after him.

She got to him first. She was a fast little thing. She grabbed him, he shook her off and kept running, and a moment later the two security guys Tasered him.

Parker came back to Eliot at a jog, expression stern. "You all right, Mr. Rutland?"

Eliot scooted himself out from under the chairs, then pushed a tremor into his voice. He forced himself not to scowl, to look at Parker and only Parker with big eyes, though he really wanted to make sure the security guys had a good grip on Apple. "I--I-- yeah. I think so. Thank God you got here in time."

"And what's this?" the security guard said in French, pulling a photo and an envelope out of Apple's jacket pocket. Eliot caught a glimpse of the picture before the security guard flipped it over to look. It was him, from a year before. Hardison had to have pulled it off the internet, from a traffic cam or something. It looked like it had been taken secretly. Like someone might do for a mark.

"You did good work here, Gervais," Parker said, slapping the security guy on the shoulder. "The US government thanks you."

 _"Not too thick, Parker,"_ Nate directed. Then, _"You're doing great."_

Up ahead, another security guy pulled a USB drive from Knife's pocket. "We have something here, too!"

"Those aren't mine," Apple began saying, throwing suspicious looks at Parker. "Those were planted!"

"Thanks, boys," Parker said, helping Eliot up. "It looks like our plane is about to board. You can sort everything out with--" she hesitated.

 _"Agent White,"_ Hardison cut in.

"--Agent White."

"Absolutely. We'll hold these two. Though we should really close down the airport, check for others--"

Parker clapped Eliot, hard, on his better shoulder. He grunted and shot her a dark look, which she didn't seem to notice. "We've got to get Larry here to the trial. Thank you for all your help. Couldn't have done it without you." She shook their hands, her face a study in solemnity.

"We'll leave M. Depaul with you, to make sure nothing else happens," the security guy said. One of the agents -- young, maybe twenty, with a wannabe beard -- stepped forward.

"Great," Parker said. "I appreciate the help."

It was fifteen minutes before they boarded, Parker crunching her mini Oreos, Eliot with his bottle of water. The sunflower seeds and orange soda he left on the chairs when they began to board, so Nate and Hardison, Hardison had just emerged from the bathroom and was lingering toward the back of the boarding line, could pick up their respective snacks.

"I can't believe you're making me fly coach, Hardison," Eliot growled, shuffling toward the gate with the mass of other people.

_"The US government doesn't spring for first class."_

Probably not. He reached for his ticket, frowning when he pulled out a smaller stub than the ones Hardison had printed out. This _was_ first class.

Parker gave him a wide grin and plucked up her own, as well. Both first class.

Eliot smirked and handed it over to the gate attendant.

**

The couple back in coach were still complaining about the mix-up -- "But we _bought_ first class tickets!" -- when Hardison switched seats, buckling in across the aisle from Eliot and Parker.

"So," Eliot asked, keeping his voice low and watching for snoopers from his peripheral vision, "how badly did we take down Jamse?"

Hardison thought about it for a moment. "Pretty badly. Turns out the cops he was paying off were guys he knew through his White Supremacist group. Easy enough to convince them not to protect him anymore, and the group as a whole to abandon him."

\--

_Sure, Jamse had been careful not to be seen with his daughter, but no one avoided all the traffic cams everywhere. Hardison printed off those pictures, paired them with the emails between the two of them, added a few photos of Jamse standing with his dark-skinned son-in-law, and sent the lot to the hotel printer._

_"And the emails are in the hotel printer?" Nate had had the audacity to ask._

_"'Course." Hardison had said. That was child's play._

_It was even easier for Sophie and Parker to put the word out that someone new wanted a meet with the men in the White Supremacist group, to alert them to a traitor in their midst._

_"And you are?" the contact had asked, eying Nate with caution._

_Nate smiled self-deprecatingly, ducking his head and waving his hands. "No no no," he said in French. "I'm just a friend. Just want you to know what kind of man you're in bed with, that's all." He rubbed his hands, one over the other, nervously. "The cause, you know, must stay pure."_

_They nodded, agreeing even if they didn't trust him. "We'll take a look," one of them said, hoisting the manilla envelope with the emails and photos. "Thanks."_

\--

Hardison continued. "Shutting down the production of S1-25 and sending him into the hole with it was a little harder..."

\--

_"Parker," Nate said, "you got the bug dropped?"_

_A little time spent in the company's duct work while Sophie kept them out of the office, then a drop down through the vent to put the bug on the computer, and get back up and out before she was discovered? She snorted. "Easy as lying. When they open the new accounts, we'll see it."_

_\--_

_Sophie was all business, hair pulled up and back, glasses on, files held to her chest. "Yes, M. Jamse loves the specs on S1-25, and would like his money to go to it and only it. I'm hoping you can accommodate us. An account just for that would do, as long as he had your word the money would fund nothing else."_

_\--_

_And again, at the gala, in a beautiful but tasteful dress, glasses perched on her nose, smiling politely at M. Jamse. "And the company is just so pleased at your support overall, that we'd like to ask you to join our charity. It's good for tonight only, but the money goes toward protecting society against the evils of impurity, if you know what I mean. And it's all tax deductible." It hadn't taken long to convince him, to bring him to the pharmaceutical representative._

_"I'm so glad we could all come to an agreement on this," Sophie said with a benign smile for each of them. "The money will be well spent, M. Jamse," and to the representative, "Mme. LePont."_

_"Yes," LePont said. "We look forward to continuing our business arrangements."_

_Sophie smiled expectantly at Jamse. Obligingly, he said, "I'll wire the money tonight."_

_\--_

_"This is... paperwork," Gervais said, sitting in the little airport security office and leafing through the documents he'd pulled off the would-be assassin. They'd gotten there just in time; the little blond US agent shouldn't have left her witness even for a little while, but at least she'd gotten them as backup. "Something about a drug delivery? S1-25, it says. To be used 'as discussed'?" He looked up, confused, as Depaul plugged in the USB they'd pulled off the other attacker._

_The audio came through clearly. A voice neither of them recognized croaked, "Truth serum?" and one of their suspects answered, "We were going to lead with it, but the delivery only just arrived."_

_Depaul and Gerrold looked at each other warily. What followed was a grunt, a hiss, and someone spat. Their suspect said, "There, now. Let's just give you a few minutes to steep." Shortly thereafter, the whimpering started. Depaul shut it off before it got any worse. "We need to get this into evidence and call in the big guns."_

\--

Hardison looked utterly pleased with himself. "Once the police start investigating, they'll find the pharmaceutical company taking bribes for S1-25, S1-25 being delivered to Jamse's place to be used as a torture serum, Jamse on the hook for bribes to support it after it was used to torture some unknown man -- torture that was recorded and can't be denied. Both the company and Jamse will be investigated, and his cop-buddies won't help him now. When the government freezes his assets and starts looking closer, they should find the money laundering. And even if he does get out, his former guys in the drug world will be after him. They don't like it when their customers switch dealers."

\--

_"The money went through," Sophie said quietly over the comms. "Hardison?"_

_"Got it. Nate, it's headed to your phone now."_

_"Easy, easy," Nate said in French to the small group of drug dealers, their leader the only one unarmed. "We're on the same side, you and me. The enemy of my enemy, right?"_

_Guns cocked._

_The drug dealer peered at Nate suspiciously. "How do I know? You said you had something for me."_

_"Sure, sure. Just gotta reach into my pocket here, don't get too excited..." Nate pulled out his phone, bringing up the pharmaceutical company's accounts. The one Jamse had just dumped money into. He offered it to the drug dealer to see._

_"This here? This is, uh, this account is Jamse's, right? You know him."_

_"Sorry, I don't," the drug runner said with bland innocence._

_"Right, right. Well, this here -- you can look it up easily enough -- this is a drug company." He pointed out the account, and the money that had gone into it. "This drug is for recreational uses. Pretty good deal, huh? This, S1-25, it's on public record, it's the new thing, right? LSD and GHB all in one. And with a pay-off like Jamse's given them..."_

_The drug dealer looked it over carefully, his expression remaining neutral. "Interesting. Not that it matters to us... what's it matter to you?"_

_Nate smiled. "I want in on the company. Can't get in while he's monopolizing, right?"_

_"Right. We'll look into it for you."_

\--

"And with Jamse's funds frozen, he's not going to be able to escape," Eliot said, smiling slowly. "Very nice." He sat back in his chair, looking out the window. Parker got the aisle seat. Parker always got the aisle seat. They'd learned that early on.

"I have a question," Parker said. "How did Nate convince you to let us use those recordings?"

She didn't have to say which recordings. Eliot kept staring out the window, not wanting to turn and look at either of the people who'd listened to him being tortured. "We're the good guys," he said at last, still shaping the argument in his mind. "This drug could hurt a lot of people." Not just those under its influence, but the innocents who were caught in the cross-fire when agents broke or gave bad information to stop the pain.

They were in the air. Had been for a little while. He unbuckled and stood, testing how it felt to put weight on his foot. It hurt. Not as bad as it had -- the skin was toughening up -- but it still hurt.

"I've gotta use the bathroom," he said, and Parker swiveled to give him room to get out. He walked slowly, bracing on the backs of chairs.

"You need a hand?" Hardison asked.

Eliot snorted and tossed back over his shoulder, "I ain't washin' my hair."

*********************

Feeback's to writers like water to flowers, so water a writer today!


	8. Chapter 8

It was good to be home. Even if he hadn't slept a wink and spent all night patrolling the house, half certain that there were people breaking in and doubly certain he had rats. Even if every time he'd closed his eyes he'd thought someone was coming at him with a hot knife. Even if the one time he'd started to drift off, he'd woken in a panic sure that there was a bag over his nose and mouth. It had been his sheet.

  
It was still good to be home.

Eliot sat on the creeper he used to get under the Charger for repairs, scooting it along the concrete path that surrounded his garden. It didn't roll quite as well on the dirt in between rows, but it was still better than limping on his painful foot. He'd left the crutch at the airport. He was doing well enough, and it'd only get better from here.

A bag of ice was tied to his shoulder and chest to combat the sunshine that made the burns flare up. A glass of sun tea rode around on the creeper with him, a container of it steeping on the porch.

His tomatoes had suffered while he'd been gone, with a clog in the automatic watering system. The zucchini was doing all right, though, with five fat zucchinis ready for eating. Maybe stuffed zucchini soon. He still had that shoulder roast he'd pulled from the freezer last night, too tough to be good for grilling but just perfect for shredding, spicing, and packing into a zucchini shell. He'd thought about giving it to the neighbor, who didn't seem to notice toughness, but this was better. He was just debating which herbs to use in a few days, when he could eat properly again and enjoy his zucchini -- the oregano and basil would go well, and maybe he could add flavor with a little jalapeno juice -- when a voice shouted over his fence.

"Eliot! Man! Can I come in, or is this fence electrocuted?"

Eliot snorted, leaning back on his hands. "It's wood, Hardison. How would I electrify wood?"

The gate opened and closed, and a moment later Hardison walked around the corner, laptop bag slung over one shoulder, arms bared by the T-shirt he wore. "Hey, I give you all the credit you deserve."

"Where's Parker?" Generally seeing one meant the other was there, too.

"Inspecting your security system. Lengths of wood in the windows, brah? She's so annoyed at you right now. She had to break in through the attic, and she _did_ find your little electricity system up there."

Eliot scowled and glanced toward his roof, even knowing he wouldn't be able to see her from the back of the house. He didn't bother asking if she'd been electrocuted. It was Parker. "She's got no cause to be annoyed with me. She shouldn't be breaking into my house, anyway!"

From the kitchen window, open to let the place air out, Parker called, "What if you were lying on the floor and we needed to rescue you, huh? Huh? Or you went evil and we had to stop you!"

"I'm not going evil, Parker!" Eliot bellowed.

"Girl has a point," Hardison said ruminatively. "I mean, the JLA had a plan for taking down Batman, and Batman had plans for taking down... everyone."

Eliot tried to hang onto his annoyance. But-- "Did you just call me Batman?"

Hardison looked flustered. "Well, now, if anyone were gonna be Batman--"

"That make you Robin? In the little short-shorts?" Eliot smirked.

Hardison reared back, clearly offended. "First off, Dick Grayson ain't been Robin in--"

The window slammed. Then opened. "I'm opening the front windows, too!" Parker bellowed. Then it slammed again.

Eliot shook his head.

"--but Jason came back to life, y'know, now he's Red Hood--"

Eliot _looked_ at him.

Hardison trailed off. With an obvious effort, he switched gears. "I got some info on those guys who-- who kept you." His gaze dropped briefly but came back up. He patted the laptop case. "Thought you might be interested."

Eliot thought about it, then nodded once. "Let's go inside." He plucked the zucchini and put them in a cloth bag he'd brought out for that purpose, then added a couple of ripe summer squashes and two bell peppers. If he was feeding them all, he'd need more than just the zucchini. Parker ate unbelievable amounts of food.

He handed the bag to Hardison, then started to lever himself to his feet. Hardison reached down, grasping him by the elbow and giving him a second to brace before hauling him upward.

"Aren't you supposed to be on crutches still or something?" Hardison asked, the vegetable bag hanging alongside the laptop case while he looped Eliot's arm over his shoulders.

"Says who?" Eliot hung onto Hardison with his good hand, moving his bad one so Hardison could wrap around his ribs and lift a little more. He _could_ have walked by himself, sure, but there was no harm in accepting Hardison's help.

They got to the door with no mishaps, and Eliot went through first into the large, open kitchen. He'd bought the house for this kitchen. The rest of the place wasn't much, but the original owners had built a full sized, walk-in pantry instead of a sun room, and there was a canning room set up by the garage. The kitchen itself was all stainless steel appliances, a woodblock center island complete with an extra sink for washing, and three barstools along one side for guests.

That was where Parker sat, spinning on one of the stools, her feet hooking around the legs when she stopped. "What's for lunch?"

Hardison put the bag of vegetables on the island and peered at them dubiously. "Veggies."

Parker plucked up a red bell pepper and bit into it like an apple.

"That's not--" Eliot began, then stopped and shook his head. He limped to the refrigerator and pulled out the thawed roast, putting it in the sink. "You can eat whatever you want for lunch. This is dinner. It takes _time_ to cook."

Parker looked over the spread. "Can _you_ eat it?"

Eliot hesitated, then scowled. "I'm still on liquids for a while."

"I bet you have a food processor," Hardison said. "We can just blend it again! Mmm, crumb food!"

"Too many vegetables. It'd be mush. Besides, no -- that's disgusting." He'd stick with the smoothies he'd made at 2am, which actually tasted like they'd been made in a glass blender rather than stored in plastic bottles.

"Well, maybe--" Hardison began.

"Didn't you say you had something on the guys who held me?" Eliot interrupted.

"Right, yeah." Hardison pulled his laptop out, putting it on the woodblock and taking up space. He hit a button and it began to boot. Hardison didn't wait for it before he started talking, though. "The police found everything Parker planted on your attackers when she caught them -- nice job, baby--" he grinned at her foolishly, and Eliot found a smile dragged up at the picture they made.

Parker just grinned and took another bite of pepper.

"--which, with the audio and the delivery paperwork and all, incriminates them pretty badly. I was also able to get their fingerprints off the police search once they'd been booked, and spread their information to everyone Parker and I have ever known, plus the various law enforcement agencies. No one'll be hiring them for a while." Then he grinned, perching on a bar stool and looking satisfied with himself. "But best yet, Parker and Nate had the airport security so convinced that she was undercover and you were in witness protection that the security guys made sworn statements to the fact."

\--

_"I need help securing my package," Parker said, handing over her badge. "Call it in. This once, for this package, they'll tell you who I am. After that don't bother trying again."_

_The man in charge of airport security dubiously dialed the number not on Parker's fake badge, but on security's international look-up._

_Half a terminal away and in the men's room, Hardison intercepted the call and re-routed it to Nate's cell phone. Nate had the official rhetoric down pat. Code-words, case files, a secret phrase she gave them. Then, "Yes, yes, she works for us. Any help you can give her--"_

_And they had, getting there just in time to see two men try and take down her package, just in time for Parker to lay hands on each of Eliot's kidnappers and plant evidence._

\--

"Haven't they called the number again to re-check her identity?" Eliot asked, doubtful.

Hardison shrugged. "With the story Parker and Nate spun them, they've called -- but they seem to think it's government secrecy. Maybe they'll figure it out eventually, but by then our boys will have a heck of a time finding employment." He grinned.

Eliot returned the smile on a lesser scale, more reluctantly. Just like that, it was all over. The ends were tied up neatly in one of Nate's little bows, the team was free, he was healing -- his oral surgeon could get him in for new implants in two days, and the burns still hurt but he'd had worse -- and they were home.

He chopped a bell pepper in half with one swift blow and set it aside, leaving figuring out how to core it with one hand for later. He should be ecstatic to be home -- and he was -- but sleeping had been easier in the hotel room, on the couch. He'd have Parker and Hardison here through dinner, at least.

**

Parker stretched, arms over her head, shirt riding up to show a sliver of lean, muscular abdomen. Hardison reached out, sliding his hand over it, fingers drifting upward over the rest of her muscles. She grinned at him, eyes sparkling.

In the kitchen, some sort of electric _thing_ started going, making both of them jump. Hardison sat up on the couch, shifting Parker off his lap. His back and neck protested mightily; he was getting too old to spend nights on couches (though he'd never be too old to spend nights where Parker slept on top of him, even if she did drool).

He could see Eliot -- who'd gone to bed around midnight, come back down around one thirty, and slept the rest of the night in the easy chair -- now puttering in the kitchen. His limp was a little heavier this morning as he fussed with the grinder. The smell of coffee beans filled the air.

"I had dreams that he got taken," Parker said softly, words hidden from anyone but Hardison by the noise. Her gaze was steady on Eliot. "But then I'd open my eyes, and he'd be right here."

Hardison stroked her hair. "It'll probably go away in a week or so." He hoped, because every time he closed his eyes he heard Eliot screaming. Opening them to see Eliot safe helped.

She turned, pinning him with a clear blue gaze made clearer in the morning light. The grinder shut off, and she dropped her voice accordingly. "You think he'll let us stay for a week? It's easier to sleep. I won't have to break in here to check that he's okay."

And the scary thing was, Hardison thought, she made that statement as if breaking in were the perfectly normal, logical route to take. "I don't know about a week," he said, "but maybe I can get him to let us stay a few days, anyway. Do me a favor, go pretend to be busy in the bathroom and let us have guy-talk?"

She nodded, hopping up and trotting off toward the downstairs bathroom.

Hardison rose stiffly, wincing. If they did stay, he was going to have to arrange for something better than a couch. There was a guest bedroom, after all. It wouldn't take more than a few minutes to put some blankets and sheets on the bed...

Eliot was making coffee one-handed. It smelled fantastic, and Hardison didn't even drink coffee. He wandered into the kitchen, opening the fridge and pulling out the 2-liter of orange soda he'd brought over.

"That's disgusting," Eliot said without turning. "You can't have _orange soda_ for breakfast."

"I'm not," Hardison said with a grin. "I'm having whatever you're making, and I'm drinking orange soda for the sugar rush. It doesn't even have hardly any caffeine in it, unlike that black brew you're concocting."

Eliot shot him a dark look. He was still wearing a zip-up hoodie -- his own, now -- with it mostly unzipped over the bandages on his chest. After just a few days, the swelling in his face had gone down, but the bruises would take a little longer. "And who said I was making breakfast?"

"The two dozen eggs in the fridge."

"There's only half a dozen eggs in there and the rest of the cartons are empty," Eliot said. "But I'm sure the hens have laid again."

Haridson's thoughts derailed. "You have hens?" he asked finally.

"The neighbor keeps an eye on them when I'm not here," Eliot said. He added water to the coffeemaker, then shuffled to the spice rack and started pulling out jars.

From outside Hardison heard Parker say, "Hey! Pet chickens!"

"Bring in some eggs!" Eliot bellowed.

There was no answer, but clucking became suddenly audible.

"Don't you need a rooster...?"

"Not if you don't want fertile eggs." Apparently satisfied with his spice selection, he fumbled one lid off with his good hand.

Hardison shook his head, swigging soda to bring his mind back to the topic he wanted to address. "Look, man, before Parker gets back... she ain't been sleeping well, y'know?"

It might have been his imagination, but he thought Eliot hesitated. "Yeah. Here, open these lids for me." Eliot passed across two more spice bottles, burned hand cradled next to his chest.

Hardison set his soda aside and began unscrewing lids. "And to be honest, I ain't either. She sleeps better when you're around, and you could probably use the help until your hand heals, and you _have_ a spare bedroom..."

He didn't say that Eliot seemed to sleep better when they were around, too. He figured that would be over the line. Regardless of whether or not he said it, though, he bet Eliot was thinking about it; Eliot's brows had drawn low over his eyes, his mouth thinned to a hard line. "I could hire a nurse if I needed help," Eliot pointed out. "It wouldn't be the first time." He took the spices and sprinkled some into the coffee filter.

"That wouldn't help Parker." Or Hardison, but he couldn't bring himself to admit to that -- just like Eliot couldn't bring himself to admitting that company was better.

"Ah, hell," Eliot muttered, handing the spice bottles back to be re-capped. "We all sleep better when there's people around." Or, Hardison supposed, Eliot _could_ admit it. "And I could use the help. Stay for a week. By then my hand'll be better, and everyone'll be sleeping all right. Then you two are leaving -- I like having my own space." He glowered.

"Hey, I get you there. Parker and I have to keep the sex noises down in your house. That ain't cool." He grinned, wider when Eliot _looked_ at him. "And at home she's got this harness set up that--"

"Enough!" He thought Eliot tried to sound gruff, but there was laughter in the word.

"Look!" Parker called from the back door. "It's friendly!"

She hadn't gathered the eggs so much as a hen. It was cradled in her arms, one of her hands around its throat, and it looked like it was about to panic.

"Parker! Put her down!" Eliot snapped.

"But she just squatted down in front of me, practically asking to be picked up!"

Eliot limped toward the kitchen door. "If you scare my hens--"

"Okay, okay..." Parker turned and bounced back down the steps, crooning to the hen.

Eliot rested, good hand against the wall, weight off his bad foot, before he turned around and obviously considered the trek back to the coffee maker. "Hardison--"

Hardison covered it in a few strides, ducking under Eliot's arm and helping him back. "We could get you another crutch, man."

"I dunno," Eliot said with a grin, unwinding from Hardison as they reached the sink. "You make a pretty good one. I'll have to remember that."

Hardison snorted. "You planning on getting tortured again?"

With a shrug, Eliot pulled a knife out of the block and an onion from a hanging basket. "Maybe shot next time. Just for variety."

It took Hardison a minute to find the laugh past his disbelief that Eliot would _joke_ about it. But then, he supposed Eliot had dealt with worse.

"I got the eggs!" Parker shouted, coming through the door. She'd pulled her shirt halfway up her body so it barely covered her breasts, exposing her entire stomach and making a hammock for a bundle of eggs.

"In the cartons," Eliot said, gesturing with his knife. "And get out the half-dozen that are already in there. I think there's a couple of fat tomatoes on the vine outside, if you'll get those, too."

Parker nodded cheerfully while Hardison unloaded the eggs. "Hey," she said, looking over the woodblock. "This is just the right height for--" She stopped, eyes twinkling. "Planning a heist."

Hardison looked at her, a little confused. There was a tone to her voice that made him think she was trying to say something else entirely, but it was rare enough for her to get sort of double-talk that he just couldn't be sure.

Then Eliot turned, pointing his knife at her. "You're not planning any heists on my woodblock, Parker. None. You have a bedroom for that. You can plan all the heists you want _in the bedroom_."

She swept her hands over the wood grain, smiling with mischief, looking at Eliot from under her lashes. Hardison knew better than to trust her when she looked like that. "But this is just the perfect height. Hardison is tall, in case you hadn't noticed--"

"Parker!" There was exasperation and amusement along with the barked word.

Parker laughed, a high, chiming sound, and danced out the back door. "Tomatoes!" she called. "Got it!"

Eliot watched her go. Hardison watched Eliot, hoping for a clue. Then Eliot shook his head and muttered, "There's something _wrong_ with that girl."

Hardison looked after her. She was chasing hens again across the yard, now that they'd been loosed from the coop. One squatted suddenly, and she stopped just as quickly, bending to pick it up and cuddle it. The smile on her face was utterly content with the world. "Yeah," Hardison said, warmth blooming in his chest. He leaned against the sink, arms folded, happy to just watch her.

Movement caught his eye, and he glanced over in time to see Eliot looking away from him, going back to the onion. Eliot was smiling, too, with a pleased air about him, and for the first time since everything had started, Hardison thought the expression might just stick for a while.

\--End

A/N: Many thanks to the people who've responded (including those who haven't yet but are about to! *grins*). For original work, please see www.jbmcdonald.com! 

It's been a ride! ;)

J


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